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Displays Television Hardware

Transparent Displays Are Here, But They're Pretty Useless 171

An anonymous reader writes: Samsung has debuted the first commercial installation of its 55-inch 'mirror' displays at a salon in South Korea with a transparent OLED screen overlaid over a mirrored surface to allow interaction. The Samsung product rivals an equivalent TOLED from Planar, with both intended for high-end use in the retail display and exhibition space. However both manufacturers are struggling to find practical applications for the much-awaited technology. Transparent displays have been a staple of sci-fi films such as Minority Report for decades, but only, it seems, because they helped to open up scenes which would otherwise have been difficult to film. With the pending advent of AR-based visualization, the innovation of the clear monitor seems not only to have come too late, but also offer limited practical use, even if its current breathtaking prices were to descend to the consumer space.
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Transparent Displays Are Here, But They're Pretty Useless

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    Make the transparency switchable, like with the privacy glass windows/doors that are available for commercial installations. Then we can all have monitors that fade from view and let us see the office through the screen. Probably a ways off from the tech currently available but it is what I hope for one day. I hate feeling like I'm staring at a wall 2 feet in front of me, no matter how fancy the graphics are.

  • If you thought the high gloss screen on your laptop was bad enough...
  • This is not news.

    Anyone with half a brain could tell you that transparent displays are useless except for some very small niche corner cases.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Foreseeing uses for technology - you make it sound so simple... Let me leave a few quotes you may be joining soon:

      "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
      Thomas Watson, president of IBM, 1943

      "Television won't be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night."
      Darryl Zanuck, executive at 20th Century Fox, 1946

      "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
      Ken Olsen, founder of Digita

      • The difference is that all those things were said before people knew any better, and they're mostly myths anyway. Are you familiar with snopes? Might want to check it out...

        Transparent screens aren't all that new, and they've already been tested. We KNOW that they are *worse* than standard screens for like 90% of uses (e.g. the computer screen you're looking at now)

        They are harder to see, harder to use, reduce readability and increase reading time. These are known facts.

        Beyond the pretty obvious niche uses,

      • "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." Thomas Watson, president of IBM, 1943

        To be fair, at the time a computer was little more than a vacuum tubed contraption the size of a small house that was little more than a glorified adding machine.

        "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977

        Wasn't that one taken out of context? I believe he was referring to having a computer that automated all household functions.

        "640K ought to be enough for anybody." Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, 1981

        It's debatable whether or not he actually said this. Most sources deny it was something that can be attributed to Mr. Gates. But this one can:

        "Two years from now, spam will be solved." -Bill Gates, 2004

    • In their current form factor they are but the tech is sound and useful for many things such as heads up displays and window blinds (down the road)

      • ... heads up displays and window blinds (down the road)...

        Exactly. All the things covered by "niche" uses, like I said.

        • By definition you could argue that toilet paper is niche, staplers are niche that sun glasses are niche yet nobody discards them because of that.

          Transparent screens can become just as important as some of those items listed.

    • by xeoron ( 639412 )
      Now if they are transparent rollable displays with tactile sensing we could have Earth Final Conflict scroll like smart phones. Example here [nocookie.net].
    • by nnull ( 1148259 )
      Where do you get the idea this is useless? I can already find uses for this for industrial automation. This is just what I wanted!
  • AR / Windows (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Thyamine ( 531612 ) <thyamine@ofdragons . c om> on Wednesday May 18, 2016 @12:35PM (#52136421) Homepage Journal
    Really the place this will be useful is where we already have clear glass surfaces: windows, windshields, goggles, etc. But the main purpose there will be for AR or simple notifications. Standing at the window and having updates about what you are seeing or random data that somehow applies. Windshields and HUDs seems obvious. 'Smart' Goggles that give you useful info while working on whatever (chemicals, temperatures, electricity, etc). Or for that extra modern look, a TV that you hang on the wall and is clear while off or displays the art on the wall, but then turns on and 'replaces' the wall/art/etc with whatever you want to watch.
    • by janoc ( 699997 )

      AR not really. The display looks almost opaque when displaying anything, so that is not useful for displaying believable overlays over a real world scene - which is what you need for AR.

      This is mostly useful for signage, ads and similar stuff, assuming the prices will be reasonable.

      Also I am not that enthusiastic about AR being a competitor to this, as implied by the poster - for AR to work a precise registration of the overlay with the real scene is required. That means cameras and goggles and a lot of com

    • Re:AR / Windows (Score:4, Interesting)

      by avandesande ( 143899 ) on Wednesday May 18, 2016 @02:20PM (#52137201) Journal
      Tons of applications in retail- think about a glass table top in restaurant where menu or other information is displayed, or items in glass cases could be queried about product information. A sensitive camera and computer could probably figure out what item you are looking at....
      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        As screens get cheaper, every available surface will become a flashing advert. Transparent displays built into glasses running an ad blocker will become necessary.

  • I have a list of applications I'd love to create if these things were readily available. I've been seething for them for a decade. How is it that they can't find applications? I've read university students projects and DIY makers who did frieking awesome stuff with them. Maybe the price point isn't good? Or the technology isn't any good? Or have the engineers been watching too many scifi movies and not going around the real world looking for applications?

  • And that's about it. If you need a head's up display, you need transparent displays. But if you are not displaying info directly on existing reality, there are few good reasons for a transparent monitor.

    If they become cheap enough, I could see car windshields being replaced by transparent displays, particularly for driverless cars.

    • by LWATCDR ( 28044 )

      " If you need a head's up display, you need transparent displays."
      Not really since no current HUD uses a transparent display. They all use a reflected image.

    • by Goldenhawk ( 242867 ) on Wednesday May 18, 2016 @01:04PM (#52136667) Homepage

      Not so simple as transparent displays. I built a HUD for my car a few years ago, and proper optics are essential to the usefulness of a HUD. Essentially, you need lenses or curved mirrors or specially-tuned diffraction gratings to refocus the image some distance away - preferably many feet ahead of the car, so you don't need to refocus on the windshield.

      Having information presented at the same depth distance as your windshield, but in the same general direction you're already looking for at-a-distance viewing, is distracting and hard for the eye/brain system to tolerate.

      Here's a pretty good overview of HUD optics.
      http://www.mikesflightdeck.com... [mikesflightdeck.com]

    • THIS^

      Only one who actually *gets it* so far.

  • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday May 18, 2016 @12:41PM (#52136483)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by Yunzil ( 181064 )

      Or a convenient window treatment that could some day make Dick Cheney look like a real person instead of a villain from an episode of captain planet.

      Look, there are fundamental limits to technology that we will never be able to overcome.

  • by Vapula ( 14703 ) on Wednesday May 18, 2016 @12:42PM (#52136487)

    I can see a lot of possible uses...

    - easy HUD in cars : windshield but also on the external mirrors (augmented reality) for example...
    - at supermarkets, on fridge doors
    - on semi-transparent windows next to doors to show who is on the other side of the door while letting light get through when it's off ...

    basically, on see-through windows for Augmented Reality, on windows (normal or semi-transparent) to let light though when device is off, on mirror or windows where if the device is off you need full mirror/window functionnality (like car mirrors), on glasses, ...

    • by EvilSS ( 557649 )
      I think mirror displays are about their best hope for a market overall. That and AR if you can make them small enough and in the right shape.
  • by barc0001 ( 173002 ) on Wednesday May 18, 2016 @12:50PM (#52136553)

    I saw these in Vegas last year. Not at a trade show, in shops being used for serving beer, so obviously the cost isn't atrocious:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KAbiQLkuQ0

    And people have been doing smart mirrors for ages, and mirror display TVs. Not sure what the "new" hype is about.

    • hey that's neat. IT'S THE FUTURE (not really but someone from 1960 would shit their pants seeing that)
  • No more green screens: but the weather person behind the TOLED screen and we can see both the radar map and where they're pointing.





    Maybe they won't even bother with a sweater.
  • by Dusthead Jr. ( 937949 ) on Wednesday May 18, 2016 @12:52PM (#52136563)
    A casino I visit has transparent displays over some slot machines. They've taken LCD diplays and removedance the back lights you can see the wheels through the animated images.
    • by UnderCoverPenguin ( 1001627 ) on Wednesday May 18, 2016 @06:14PM (#52138469)

      About a year ago, I was attending an event in a hotel's banquet room. In the other (bigger) banquet room, a DJ was setting up, She had a transparent, touchscreen monitor (48cm, 1080p) as her DJ console. When I asked, she said it cost about $3000 US. The event she was DJ'ing was longer than the event I was attending, so I looked in on her before I left. Since the room was dark, could barely see her hands through the back of the screen. Mostly, it just added a little to the light show with the level meters and wave forms displayed on the screen.

      (BTW, she was running the open source Mixxx DJ console under Gentoo Linux on her laptop.)

  • This just in (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Wednesday May 18, 2016 @12:53PM (#52136577)

    After we have noticed that software that looks great in movies but are completely and utterly shit if they were used in reality (like, say, databases that display EVERY SINGLE false photograph of a potential culprit before finding the correct one, or interfaces where you have to wave your hands about instead of typing on a keyboard), we now find out that hardware that looks great in movies is ALSO crap for real applications.

    Who would have thought.

  • by will_die ( 586523 ) on Wednesday May 18, 2016 @12:57PM (#52136609) Homepage
    My final job plan is to setup an office were the employees are facing each other and the only input devices on each computer are voice controlled and a vertical transparent touch display.
    After I take of picture of the office of the future I will retire and go down in history.
    • I don't think you would make it out the door, much less the parking lot, before the workers caught up with you.
      You would still go down in history.
      As the cause of the revolution.
      But history nonetheless.
  • I can think of many, many uses for such a screen. I think it can be distilled as such: you put them anywhere additional information through A/R would be useful, but where the viewer is fixed in space relative to the screen and needs to maintain that perspective to the world. So, perhaps the glass dividing a bank teller and a bank customer. How about a construction worker in a backhoe or crane looking through a transparent display that highlights buried gas lines, or potential danger areas. In fact, any auto

  • I saw the transparent LCD display on slot machines at a trade show in Vegas over 6 years ago. They were mechanical reel slot machines with the front glass as a clear panel that could draw lines or pictures over the matching symbols. This video [youtube.com] shows one that is a bit fancier than the ones I saw years ago, but after the spin you can see the lines draw across the matches.
  • Arcade games (Score:5, Informative)

    by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Wednesday May 18, 2016 @01:22PM (#52136821) Journal

    First off, arcade games have been using these for years. Skip to 45 seconds in for an example (volume warning - it's in an arcade so it's loud): https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    There's another arcade game with little fish bowls that's also transparent. It's really cool just to look at.

    Also, many years ago, around 20 or so, I took a calculator apart and removed the back-most layer of the LCD and... voila - it was transparent. This capability has existed for decades (in fact all LCD displays are transparent - it's only the more modern OLED where that hasn't been the case) but there have always been backlights or some other material placed behind them to make them contrast as much as possible.

  • by roc97007 ( 608802 ) on Wednesday May 18, 2016 @01:27PM (#52136851) Journal

    ...a staple of science fiction for decades, but even when the price became trivial (most modern cell phones will do it) most people didn't want it.

    And for much the same reason -- videophone conversations work well in movies as they more closely resemble the "talking head" interactions the public is used to in films, but in the real world, people don't necessarily want someone else looking at their face while they talk.

  • With some kind of multi-touch multi-user software, I would love to see this on a bus, or a train...

    You could be able to see maps, transit information, restaurants nearby without losing the view of the city. Even if you don't have AR it could be really interesting

  • A significant number of people become sick from this.... kind of makes it a non-starter for serious applications.
  • I'd use these to keep an eye on time stealing employees (or rather make them use these to make it easier for me to monitor their time theft).

  • This is the first thing that popped into my head, Additionally it is a rather large market if successful.
  • I don't even like a background image on my desktop. Just a blank blue colour and a few key icons for programs and shortcuts to data.

  • Not to worry, Wolf Blitzer and the acronym alphabet soup primetime police crime dramas will find great ways to distort reality with these displays.

  • Overlays during surgery. See through where the doctor is working, but with other info highlighted.

    Astronomy. Highlight stuff in the sky. You could have one in front of a telescope.

    Smart glasses - even if there was backlash for Google Glass.

Do you suffer painful illumination? -- Isaac Newton, "Optics"

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