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Aside from flashy 3D displays, the other big draw for fans of future tech at Display 2008 in April was electronic paper in at least 57 flavor-packed varieties.

Flat-panel displays are so mainstream these days they have an entire massive exhibition dedicated to them – the Display Expo in Tokyo. That’s where the technologies we’re likely to see in the shops over the next few years get an early airing, and we were there last month.

Ever wondered what we’ll all be reading on the hover bus in The Future?

Now that it’s all grown up and mature, electronic paper is stating to get out a bit more and enjoy life – its latest sortie sees it appearing on train station ticket gates as a variety of advertising posters.

One welcome side-effect of the new breed of ultra-thin TVs has come to light in a recent report from Hitachi Japan – apparently, they’re better for the environment.

As we’ve mentioned in the past, the new breed of OLED televisions represented by Sony’s XEL-1 have plenty of assets, but an active lifespan shorter than that of LCD or plasma screens isn’t one of them.

According to Japanese business paper the Nikkei, Toshiba and Matsushita’s much-vaunted plans to join Sony in the OLED TV market have been shelved after problems moving from the research lab to mass production.

We’d have thought that most people who watch movies and TV shows on their iPods have probably moved on from carrying about portable DVD players as well, but apparently - judging by its latest product - Polaroid Japan missed that meeting.

Next time you throw an old cellphone away, spare a thought for the engineers at Hokuto System in Japan, who have recycled their old handsets to make fully functional computers.

As this latest piece of sci-fi-style research has appeared only in a rather traditional Japanese newspaper we haven’t been able to get many details yet, but thought we’d mention it in passing, as everyone loves a good yarn.

Next time you go shopping for a second television set for the spare room or bedroom, chances are it might be one of a new breed of smaller full high-definition TVs, such as the new models introduced today by Sharp.

We’ve all seen computer screens that are designed to be viewed only from directly in front to prevent snoopers from sneaking a sideways glance, but the price of privacy has always been severe image deterioration. NEC’s newest LCD technology appears to offer a solution.

As we mentioned last week, Samsung has a few surprises in store at this week’s Flat Panel Display International show in Japan and has been drip-feeding them to the press ahead of the show’s opening on Wednesday.

We’ve devoted a lot of space recently to coverage of the latest in display technology, from thin screens to all manner of touch-sensitive displays, but this is the first time we’ve been able to say that a new product really stinks.

Head to the Flat Panel Display International show in Yokohama, Japan, next week and you’ll get an eyeful of three new LCDs from Samsung that will probably start showing up in laptops sometime next year.

With the end of CEATEC 2007 looming, it’s the perfect time to reflect on the strongest theme of this year’s show and the implications for what we’ll be finding in our electronics shops over the next months and years.

We’ve seen plenty of next-generation flat televisions at this week’s CEATEC show in Japan, but a technology we haven’t heard of in a while is the field emission display, or FED.

Apple’s Multi-touch technology, as seen in the iPhone and iPod touch, are pretty good, but don’t you think they’re just a little bit, well, yesterday? If you don’t already, you will when you see what Sharp has in store.

Although today’s Panasonic Japan launch of seven new 1080p high-definition televisions introduced the world to plenty of quality new hardware, one of the more intriguing announcements was buried well below the headline.

There are big TVs, ridiculously big TVs and then those sets that just make you wonder about people who own them, but out gunning all of those categories of ways to waste money is a new 231in display from Fujitsu.