With geeks all over the world testing the supremacy of technology and pushing its frontiers, simple yet useful devices are going through a major facelift. An innovation of today becomes an object of daily use in a matter of few years. This time, it’s the turn of lighting devices. General Electric Co. has come up with a machine that can prints sheets of light. The flexible sheets are coated with a layer of OLEDs and other chemicals which run 8-inch wide with a final layer of metal foil to guard the mixture. It emits a blue-white glow on having passed electric current through it.

The flexible attribute connotes that you wouldn’t require any dedicated objects to cling your lighting devices. You can just wrap these sheets on the pillar or put them behind your window blinds.This could be a promising technology for photographers because of the wonders that soft light does to our looks.

Pricing and Availability:
Since OLED featuring gadgets are on the expensive side, GE is caught up with the issue of mass-production of such sheets but at an affordable price. The pioneers of these light-sheet printers are looking forward to make their product commercially available by 2010, but only on the luxury shelves. Like any other tech-product, it would take time to reach the affordable hands of an average consumer. Another problem that OLEDs would encounter is acceptability in industry since users will have to change their electric wiring system to accommodate such panels.

Watch this:
Printing of sheets that emit light is definitely not as simple as printing text or graphics on paper. It will change the way we perceive electric sources of life, from sometimes obese (bulb) and sometimes slender (tubes), it would be radiant sheets that will erase the darkness in our homes. It could be an excellent décor accessory at home, where someone can choose to lit up a particular wall or ceiling of the room. But longevity and plugging issues can run over the success of these sheets.

Via Gizmowatch