What are they?

Laser TV is a new technology using something called "optoelectronics". It is still currently under development by several consumer electronics companies. We'll have to wait about a year to have them in our homes though as they won't be made available until the end of 2007 or the beginning of 2008!

Before HDTV we used UHP lamps to project images and the quality wasn't all that great. Although HDTV was a great step forward in TV quality, it won't be as good as the efficiency and lifetime of Laser TVs.

There is a company in Silicon Valley (where else) that is leading the design and development of laser TV. They've developed something called "Necsel" laser technology which is a type of semiconductor laser that has the necessary optical charecteristics at the right price to make high-volume display and production a possibility.

They claim the new laser technology will allow displays with a richer, more vibrant color palette than the conventional plasma, LCD or CRT displays.

They also claim the displays will:

• be half the weight and cost of Plasma or LCD displays
• require 75% less power than Plasma or LCD displays
• be very thin like Plasma and LCD displays are today
• have a very wide colour gamut
• have a 50,000 hour life (that's an awful lot of Miss Maple)
  

But "Necsel" won't be limited to just televisions, as the technology is compact, bright and low cost, it could also be possible to integrate it into "embedded" displays in mobile phones and PDAs.

Also Samsung and Mitsubishi have stated that they will be introducing laser-based displays. However, there are a number of major TV manufacturers have indicated that they have no plans to incorporate the technology into their product ranges.

We await further news on the matter. But it seems to be something very interesting!