Startup 'eyes' healthier displays

IRYStec Software's Perceptual Display Platform mimics how human eyes see and helps reduce eye strain.

Display technology shouldn't be left to engineers.

That is what is driving a Montreal-based startup to develop eye-friendly technology for smartphones, automotive dashboards and VR headsets. The genesis of IRYStec goes back to 2013, when Tara Akhavan, a second-year PhD student attending the Vienna University of Technology was presenting at a conference on high dynamic range or HDR, where her work caught the eye of who would be the company's first investor, Montreal-based TandemLaunch.

TandemLaunch's CEO had previously sold an HDR company 10 years ago, and initial discussions led to the idea that what is missing in display technology is human perception. "It is just in the last 10 years that we have been intimate with displays," said Akhavan, now cofounder and chief technology officer. "We are just figuring out the side effects."

Research suggests Americans spend as much as seven hours a day in front of a screen. Over the last 20 years, said Akhavan, physiologists have developed a better understanding of how the human visual system works, as well as the negative side effects that result when display use exceeds four hours a day. However, she said, device manufacturers have traditionally relied solely on image processing and hardware engineers to design their displays.

IRYStec Software's Perceptual Display Platform addresses the current shortcoming when it comes to developing displays for devices such as smartphones and automotive dashboard clusters. The standard approach to measuring a display's performance is in a dark or dim room, but the display's performance does not often account for the fact that it will be viewed in multiple environments: a dark room, normal ambient illumination and in bright light; so as ambient illumination goes up, the perceivable black level rises, darker tones are harder to see, colors become desaturated and overall contrast decreases.

To read the full article, go to EE Times.