Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
Displays Hardware Technology

Samsung Develops a Transparent OLED Laptop Screen 148

Dyne09 writes "The Design blog has posted an entry on Samsung's new laptop with a transparent OLED screen. The photos show a dark-tinted and dimly-lit screen that is fully see-through. While the utility of a see-through laptop probably isn't that high for the average user, several medical and industrial industries could greatly augment design work or frame 3-D models over real life in real-time."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Samsung Develops a Transparent OLED Laptop Screen

Comments Filter:
  • Realistic Uses (Score:4, Interesting)

    by teeks99 ( 849132 ) * on Saturday January 09, 2010 @03:00PM (#30708806) Homepage

    I had two ideas come to mind on ways to use this technology (laptop screens don't really seem like a killer feature).

    - Glasses. It would be great to get a screen on the lenses of my sunglasses, most of the time they'd be clear like normal, but info could pop up throughout the day as needed. Or I could sit back and watch a video, and just turn it off if I needed to see something.

    - 3D Displays. If one would take many layers of this together, it would be possible to create a 3D display a couple inches deep that would be able to be viewed without any need for glasses. It would be quite limited to the amount of depth available, but even a small amount could be revolutionary.

  • by Sepodati ( 746220 ) on Saturday January 09, 2010 @03:14PM (#30708886) Homepage

    How about using this on a hybrid laptop/tablet? Instead of having an mechanical swivel for the screen that can break, just have a transparent screen like this. Open it up and it's a laptop. Shut the laptop and the screen mirrors so it's a tablet now. This is assuming you could get the outside (or back of) the screen to have touch capabilities.

    -John

  • by maxume ( 22995 ) on Saturday January 09, 2010 @03:20PM (#30708944)

    If prices continue to drop, the same thing could be implemented using two screens (I guess the exterior screen would have other semi-useful applications when the laptop was open).

    Personally, I think thin and cheap are a much bigger deal for OLEDs than semi-transparency.

  • Nook2 (Score:4, Interesting)

    by eightball ( 88525 ) on Saturday January 09, 2010 @03:25PM (#30708980) Journal

    Instead of having LED below the e-ink, put it on top of the e-ink. With no current applied to either, you see the e-ink. When you need to use the faster more colorful tech, make the e-ink whitish and turn on the OLED.

  • Two thoughts. . . (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Fantastic Lad ( 198284 ) on Saturday January 09, 2010 @03:31PM (#30709036)

    This could change the game for small tablets; you could hold the tablet on either side and use your fingers behind the screen to manipulate images without obstructing your view of them.

    I've seen variations of such a solution which artificially create a 'finger' effect through graphics with the touch pad on the back of the device, but this would be the real thing.

    Interesting.

    Also. . .

    People are obviously worried about the privacy factor of see-through computer screens, but I could see this being considered a huge plus in the evil corporate work environment; the drones would only be allowed to use laptops where the backside is a window to the front. A lot less Facebook and Farmville would eat into company time that way. Or at least, this may be how the pointy-haired dictator might think when placing bulk-orders for laptops.

    -FL

  • Minority Report? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by lymond01 ( 314120 ) on Saturday January 09, 2010 @03:39PM (#30709100)

    If you combine this with Wii-type motion control, I think you have the photo/video system from Minority Report.

  • Re:Realistic Uses (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gmuslera ( 3436 ) on Saturday January 09, 2010 @03:46PM (#30709148) Homepage Journal
    Combine both into 3d glasses, you give the 3d showing slightly different screen for each eye, Add augmented reality to the mix and you'll have an explosive cocktail. And you can add exrta features like vision enhancement (ok, for that dont need to be transparent, just project camera vision as background) to be able to use them if you are shortsighted
  • Re:Nook2 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by eggnoglatte ( 1047660 ) on Saturday January 09, 2010 @04:30PM (#30709464)

    It is too dim to have a purely reflective technology at the back. The OLED is only 40% transparent, any light bouncing off the e-ink has to pass through the OLED twice (once from the light source to the e-ink, and once form the e-ink to the viewer). At the end you only have 16% of the light being reflected, minus whatever the e-ink absorbs. The reflections of the top of the OLED will be brighter than the displayed information from the e-ink.

  • Tablet technology? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SEWilco ( 27983 ) on Saturday January 09, 2010 @06:00PM (#30709970) Journal
    Maybe a laptop with this screen could operate as a tablet when the lid is closed.

A slow pup is a lazy dog. -- Willard Espy, "An Almanac of Words at Play"

Working...