A recent trademark filing from Samsung suggests the company may be ready to introduce an even better VR display.
Dutch site Galaxy Club recently discovered a European trademark filing from the company for an ‘Anti SDE AMOLED’. While the documents don’t make it explicitly clear, it’s very likely that ‘SDE’ refers to screen door effect, which describes the visible distance between pixels on a display fitted to a VR headset. Viewed through the headset’s lenses, this space an distort your view of a virtual world somewhat, removing some of the immersion.
It’s very possible that this Anti SDE display is the same as the display we saw at this May’s Display Week Event. There, Samsung showcased a screen with a filter specifically designed to combat screen door effect, showcasing a virtual movie poster inside. “Instead of seeing the lines between pixels, the fine details looked more like the grain of a frame from an old movie,” we said in our report.
The company also demonstrated a sharp 2.43-inch display with a 1,200 per-per-inch density (PPI). These clearer screens will eventually be what completely eliminate screen door effect in VR, though right now they’re not thought to be commercially viable, which is why we expect the workaround filter to be what’s really being described in the trademark.
That begs the question, then, will we be seen this new display soon? Samsung is expected to reveal its next enlarged smartphone, the Galaxy Note 9, a month from now at an event on August 9th, and we can’t help but wonder if this new feature will be included in the phone. If it is, that could mean big things for the next Gear VR headset, which supports the Galaxy phones and utilizes content from Oculus.
