Panasonic Unveils Flat-Panel Speakers

"Matsushita Electronic Industrial and its subsidiary Matsushita Electronic Components will start shipping samples of transparent flat-panel speakers for mobile phones and PDAs next month, they announced Monday.

The products, the Acoustic Panel and the Acoustic Touch-Panel, use Sound Window technology jointly developed by Matsushita, better known for its Panasonic brand name, and its subsidiary.

Sound Window consists of a transparent panel mounted in front of a device's display and a separate driver to vibrate the air between the panel and the display to create sound.

The panels are thin and flexible, so they do not affect the sound quality when they are touched. Because the panel is placed over the LCD, the mobile device does not require speaker holes....

The Acoustic Panel is aimed mainly at mobile phones and compact music players, and the Acoustic Touch-Panel, which has a touch-screen panel function, at PDAs and car navigation systems.

The Osaka companies plan to start mass production in March next year, when they expect to manufacture 1 million Acoustic Panel units and 500,000 Acoustic Touch-Panel units a month." [PC World]

So now the touchscreen on the OQO mini-computer could also be a speaker, and you could truly access The Heavenly Jukebox from anywhere with embedded Wi-Fi in chips in cell phones. PDAs and smartphones could let you listen to an audio ebook in your car or in bed.

Now if it just doubled as a microphone for processing voice commands....