The different screen technologies

Note : This page has been translated into English from French by a machine translation tool

A screen is no longer just a screen. If that surprises you, it is indeed the case. If it used to be a device that might have seemed relatively simple and did not require a lot of features to be analyzed in order to choose it a few years ago, today it requires special attention. We will see here some of the technologies that are implemented on the latest generation screens. However, it should be pointed out that the screens themselves are not systematically the only components involved in the operation of these technologies…

Eyesafe® technology

You have certainly heard about blue light, particularly emitted by the increasing number of screens in our lives, which would affect our visual abilities, our concentration faculties or even our sleep. Recent studies on the subject have led manufacturers to integrate in their devices, especially computers, tablets and smartphones, “Night” modes or a function to reduce blue light.

The problem when you choose to activate these filters is that your image is degraded in its colorimetric rendering. Indeed, it undergoes a transition towards a very pronounced yellow dominant. The Eyesafe® technology is a technology developed by the American company Healthe which wants to allow at the same time to decrease significantly the blue light (up to almost 30%) emitted by the screens which are equipped with it while lowering appreciably the impact on the rendering of the colors in order to maintain them as faithful as possible. This technology adapts to all types of screens available on the market (see our article The different types of screens for more information) and would work with a local adjustment of blue light emissions to warmer colors and a lowering of the white point to a color temperature also warmer.

NVIDIA G-SYNC Technology

If you are a regular user of video games that are a bit greedy on PC, you have certainly been confronted with problems of latency or image tearing. In other words, in the first case, you suffer from a lack of regularity in the refresh rate which is visually felt by jerks in the display and in the second case you have two different images displayed on the same screen, usually splitting it into two parts. This tearing effect is also called tearing. There is only one explanation for this, the lack of synchronization between the graphics card and the screen of your computer. In fact, this means that the graphics card does not take into account the refresh rate of the screen when it sends images to be displayed and the screen does not take into account the speed at which the images are sent to it by the graphics card to be displayed. As a result, either the graphics card sends an image to the screen while it is displaying another one, this is the tearing effect because the two “overlap” and are displayed at the same time, or the screen tries to display a new image that it does not receive from the graphics card and the image being displayed freezes, this is the lag or latency. The responsibility for the lack of synchronization is obviously only to be considered if your overall configuration is relatively adapted to a videogame use (see our article Technical characteristics of computers and tablets for more information). Indeed, it is obvious that latency can also come from a lack of hardware resources, the latter being insufficient to ensure the functioning of the game in question.

But let’s get to the facts, NVIDIA’s G-SYNC technology was introduced a few years ago and is gradually being democratized on computer displays to address these issues. It makes sure to synchronize, as its name suggests, the sending of the image by the graphics card and the display of this image on the screen. In fact, this image is only sent when the screen will be able to display it and the screen will only display the image when it is sure that the graphics card has managed to generate it. This technology allows for better fluidity even with a lower frame rate. If you are going to use your computer for video games, one of the ways to ensure your comfort is to choose a screen equipped with this technology.

Tobii Eye Tracking Technology

Who has never dreamed of having total control over their home appliances ? You should know that we are not far from it and this for a few years now thanks to eye tracking technology. We will focus here on its functionalities in the field of computing.

Indeed, today some computers, rather in the high-end, it must be said, integrate eye tracking technology developed by Tobii, one of the world leaders in this field, to improve the user experience. This technology has several uses and functionalities. Once your screen has been calibrated to your eyes it is able to follow your gaze by knowing when you are looking at it and especially which area of the screen you are looking at. First of all, it allows you to save energy by no longer setting the time of inactivity from which you want to turn off your screen but the time from which you want to turn it off when you are no longer looking at it. This technology is also very useful if you are used to working with several windows, for example, because to know which window the scroll wheel of your mouse will act on, you no longer need to select it but only to look at it.

This technology is particularly available on computers dedicated to video games, a use to which it is particularly well suited. Thus, it has many advantages in this field. Here are some of them…

• Allows you to control the movement of a character only by directing your gaze, so you will not have to look at the right side of your screen to tell him to go to the right
• To allow the aiming in the shooting games, you will only have to control the shooting via a physical command, the direction will be done through your eyes
• Purify your display by showing only the indicators you are looking at in the image, as soon as you stop looking at them they are no longer displayed, so as not to pollute the areas of the screen located in your peripheral vision

But the applications of this technology are extremely numerous and will continue to be more and more numerous, but also to progress over time. Among them today are applications to improve the comfort of people with reduced mobility, who will be able, for example, thanks to these tools, to click on links simply by pointing at them.