DisplayLink

I co-founded DisplayLink (formerly Newnham Research) with Martin King in 2003, and was the CEO for its first couple of years.

DisplayLink grew from a back-of-the-envelope calculation (quite literally) where we realised that general-purpose networks were getting fast enough that they could be the connection between your computer and your monitor. The company eventually focused on video-over-USB, but it had its origins in the ethernet-based ultra-thin-client hardware we developed for the Ndiyo project.

Here’s an early demo video, which we made in 2004.

If you’d like to know more about the history, there was a keynote I gave at a conference in New Zealand in 2007, which explains how all these ideas link together.

DisplayLink was acquired by Synpatics in 2020, and continues to go from strength to strength. You can read more about what they are currently doing on the Synaptics site.