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The Automotive Displays of the future have a few tricks up their sleeve

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In-vehicle displays keep getting bigger, equally in terms of size and performance. In the near future, we may well see display screen sizes more than double. But what are the technologies that are driving this trend? Here are some of the highlights.

Visteon, a US-based leader in automotive cockpit electronics, earlier this year announced its new display technology, microZone. MicroZone lays to rest the biggest setbacks that LCD and OLED screens face by offering high end graphics with a wide color gamut, high contrast ratio and high brightness. Another clever development from Visteon is the flexible rotating glass cockpit: the driver can actually bend the center information display forward for better viewing, or flatten it to allow more visibility for the front passenger.

A flexible solution – pun intended – to design challenges for automotive cockpits comes from FlexEnable, a Cambridge University spin-off. OLCD is an organic LCD. It is lightweight, shatterproof, low-cost and has excellent optical performance. It seamlessly wraps around displays surfaces and can be customized for a perfect fit around protruding elements such as buttons and switches.

And when technology companies Canatu and Continental joined forces in development, it yielded the first ever touchscreen with 3D touch surface. Thanks to this technology, no need to take your eyes off the road as your fingers can blindly navigate the 3D screen. What a way to improve road safety!