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.
Switchable (Score:1)
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.
Re:Switchable (Score:4, Insightful)
Then we can all have monitors that fade from view and let us see the office through the screen.
While your idea is good, why would I want to see those assholes? They should make a screen that blocks all peripheral view besides the monitor.
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mirrors? (Score:1)
Captain Obvious is hard at work (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
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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
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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,
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The difference is that all those things were said before people knew any better...
And you claim to know better now?
Yes, because transparent screens AREN'T new, and the research on their utility for standard computer display has been done already, or did you miss that part?
Fields like Augmented reality are in their infancy, things like HUDs on windshields could become much more common, and literally thousands of other devices we haven't even thought of yet could use this technology.
Oh, you mean all the things that I covered in the "obvious niche uses" disclaimer?
No one is talking about "regular computer use" because that may be .
The article was. I am. And yes.
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"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
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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)
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... heads up displays and window blinds (down the road)...
Exactly. All the things covered by "niche" uses, like I said.
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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.
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What about those of us with full brains? I don't get why you think they are useless.
Your statements are self-contradictory, and therefore meaningless.
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It would be like drawing with a marker on glass. No one ever does that.
They don't, actually. What you are thinking of is not a thing. You are mistaking "movies" and "TV" for "reality".
Do you also think that cars explode when they get into accidents and that defibrillators restart stopped hearts?
Re:Captain Obvious is hard at work (Score:4, Informative)
That would suck. It would be like drawing with a marker on glass. No one ever does that.
Never been to an office with a shortage of white boards, but no shortage of big windows? People do it all the time. Not ideal but it works.
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Right - not ideal. You are doing it only because you don't have what you really want: a regular white board or wall.
Thing is, that transparent monitor costs lots extra. Would you pay a huge premium for your sub-optimal solution?
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Thing is, that transparent monitor costs lots extra. Would you pay a huge premium
You don't know much about commercial buildings do you? Transparent monitors cost nothing, and neither do those $40000 smartboards (yes those are the correct number of zeros in some cases) which seem to be installed in every new building.
for your sub-optimal solution?
Sub-optimal to whom? There are many people who have already juryrigged similar systems together to solve their specific need. This is not a new concept.
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That would suck. It would be like drawing with a marker on glass. No one ever does that.
Never been to an office with a shortage of white boards, but no shortage of big windows? People do it all the time. Not ideal but it works.
Or the Combat Information Center (CIC) room on a Navy ship. The people who write on those have to write backwards so the officers on the "correct" side can read what is written. The best ones can write a single sentence with both hands starting at each end and meet up at the middle. A couple [flickr.com] of pictures. [flickr.com]
AR / Windows (Score:4, Interesting)
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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)
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As screens get cheaper, every available surface will become a flashing advert. Transparent displays built into glasses running an ad blocker will become necessary.
Useless??? (Score:2)
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?
They have a use - heads up displays (Score:2)
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.
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" 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.
Re:They have a use - heads up displays (Score:5, Informative)
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]
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THIS^
Only one who actually *gets it* so far.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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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.
Some possible uses (Score:3)
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, ...
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They've been here for a while now (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Weather (Score:2)
Maybe they won't even bother with a sweater.
Existing transparent displays (Score:3)
Re:Existing transparent displays (Score:4, Interesting)
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)
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.
Best use I've seen so far (Score:2)
Vending machines [vimeo.com]
My retirement plan is coming closer. (Score:3)
After I take of picture of the office of the future I will retire and go down in history.
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You would still go down in history.
As the cause of the revolution.
But history nonetheless.
Applicable Uses (Score:2)
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
Slot machines had them years ago (Score:2)
Arcade games (Score:5, Informative)
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.
It's like videophones (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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But it makes for an easy "two shot" when the characters are not in the same space.
Public transportation (Score:1)
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
AR Enhance Visualization (Score:2)
Not completely useless (Score:2)
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).
True 3d TVs (Score:2)
Background images and icon clutter (Score:2)
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 for consumers (Score:2)
Not to worry, Wolf Blitzer and the acronym alphabet soup primetime police crime dramas will find great ways to distort reality with these displays.
How about... (Score:2)
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.
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Re:Very niche product. (Score:5, Interesting)
A HUD would actually help enhance visibility by tracking road markings, signs, and obstacles that are low visibility, as well as alerting you of events happening in your blind spots. Integrating 3D maps and directions would be handy. Putting your speedometer and other dashboard information closer to your view could reduce time you take your eyes off the road.
AR-based visualization (Score:5, Funny)
They should have linked "AR-based visualization"
Not everyone knows what Armadillo-Rhinoceros-based visualization is. It's pretty much zoo-centric terminology.
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Yeah, Randall probably thinks it means "Angry Raptors" and is hiding under the table.
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No one has disproved Avisible Raptor theory, so until then, better safe than sorry.
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And this would be how many times more wonderful than using a half-silvered mirror. At how many times the price?
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The problem is, you need to refocus.
You need to do that anyway if you're going to look at your dashboard or your satnav's display.
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I thought the whole point of this was *not* having to look away from where you're driving? If not, dashboard it is.
Augmented reality goggles, or Google Glass 2.0, could accomplish the same thing, be more flexible and upgradable, and cost far less.
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The problem is, you need to refocus.
You need to do that anyway if you're going to look at your dashboard or your satnav's display.
When you look down at the instruments, you know you need to look back up to drive safely. Most people can barely operate the automobile as it is, and you want them to believe they can't focus on the HUD full time? Sorry, but the majority of the population (driving or not) are not overly intelligent. Something like this will confuse the hell out of them and cause more accidents, especially with those that think it's a good idea to text while driving (further evidence of the lack of intelligence in the gen
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Having Flown with a HUD (Score:2, Interesting)
Having flown with a HUD, I'd say that the current generation of "reflect off the windshield" is completely adequate for speedometer, tach and such. However, a transparent film is not a good answer for low visibility, as those need to be projected exactly over the real obstacle. That isn't possible with an OLED display unless you have the head tracking correct and figure out how to deal with the parallax between the eyeballs. There's a valid complaint that the image will be focused in the focal range instead
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To all those who think a transparent display would be useful as an automotive HUD....
You are wrong.
The focus issues have already been adequately addressed, but there's even a more fundamental issue. Namely, light. The transparent display is basically a selectively opaque display and it requires a light source on the opposite side of the display from the observer. This might work during the day, but would definitely not work during the night.
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The Planar display is OLED based and does not require a light source, as mentioned in the video at the link in the summary. Not sure about the Samsung display although I suspect the same is true based on the provided images, unless they put a light source behind the mirror.
Re: Very niche product. (Score:3)
Eh, those photos show more vivid light than the mirror receives, I doubt that is the case.
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1. Have my head hit the top
2. Put my arms in an uncomfortable position
3. Have the steering wheel blocking the speedometer
So it would be a huge help for me, since I wouldn't have to choose between comfort and being able to see my speed.
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The general population has no idea how to use a HUD, it would cause more problems than it solves. Military pilots train hundreds of hours to properly use a HUD, your average driver will end up focusing on the pretty-shiny-flashy objects two feed in front of them rather than the light that just turned red and the pedestrian that just stepped out because he has a walk sign and is looking at his phone instead of watching traffic. I really don't think we need HUD systems for the general population, ever.
No, w
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Your arguments also work against lighted speedometers, speedometers that are graduated past 55 mph, and pretty much anything on the dashboard, including radio controls, fuel remaining, etc. After all, by driving more carefully, you eliminate the need for all these staples too.
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That offers the additional benefit of not needing to constantly check your speedometer to see if you are "safely" above the posted limit.
If I just drive, and don't check my speedometer, I will most assuredly be going well over the legal 10mph over the posted speed limit (Maryland law). If I just flow with traffic, or rely on my ability to read every road sign to gauge my speed I will be running 15-20 over the speed limit. If you have trouble with these things, perhaps you are the one who is an issue.
I check the speedometer for what it is used for, to keep my speed down into the legal range, not to make sure I am only going 15 over the spee
Re:Very niche product. (Score:5, Interesting)
Citations for any of this? I don't have one so what I'm saying is no more believable, but I do recall a study that showed HUDs were more of a hindrance than a help.
I don't have any citations, but I do have one car that has a HUD. In all honesty, I thought it would be a stupid gimmicky thing, but I wish every car I owned had one now. Granted, mine is fairly simple, but well designed. It displays a digital reading of speed as the largest item. There's a bar graph of the tach across the top, bar graph for fuel along the right side, oil pressure and turn signals. What I found surprising is that the road is not as far in my peripheral vision when I glance at the HUD vs. the instrument panel. Plus, for me at least, my eyes don't really need to refocus (or not as much) to see the speed on the HUD. The numbers are large enough for me to see them.
I saw something on /. a few months ago that mentioned that the amount of information on a HUD can become a big distraction after a certain point. So I can see how it would be a problem if turn by turn directions are up there and radio information, etc. I would think anytime you need to actually read words, or need to more than glance at something, it's going to be an issue.
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I drove a grand prix that had speed and I think maybe fuel and turn signal indicators which was just projected onto a tinted section at the bottom of the windshield from inside the dash.
What kind of car do you have with a HUD?
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Mine does as well, and it also has turn by turn directions in it, which I find one if it's most useful features. It's not a map, but just simply a bar that indicates how far until the next turn and the direction of the turn. It is really nice in the suburbs where intersections can be fairly close together.
I think I had this conversation with Grim Reefer before as well, and I have a 2014 corvette stingray.
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You do not need a transparent display for a HUD.
Now for wearables where you put the display into glasses it could be handy. You could have a good display in a profile pair of glasses.
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Yes and aircraft since the 1960 or even farther back to around 1900 if you count reflector gunsights.
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Re:Very niche product. (Score:5, Funny)
Until you're checking your ass flab for zits in the mirror and accidentally accept a call from your grandmother.
Re:Very niche product. (Score:5, Funny)
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That's the first thing I thought, where would Augmented reality with a non opaque fallback mode be important, car windows.
Maybe Glasses too.
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I was very disappointed to find nobody had mentioned Peril Sensitive Glasses.
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That has been working for decades using reflection. It's not terribly helpful in daylight - but exactly that problem would affect a transparent display.
Plus there's the minor detail of repair costs. That springs to mind since the wife's car got broken into using a brick a couple of months ago, which bounced off the inside of the windscreen cracking that.
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I think e-ink/e-paper would be a much better technology for this idea.
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I'm wondering how that would work. You're thinking layering transparent displays to some depth appropriate for 3d effects?
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CSI? You mean the show where they have a fingerprint search program that fetches a full set of fingerprints and a picture of the culprit from the database, renders it on the screen, THEN notices that it's the wrong guy, fetches the next set of prints and picture...
Whoever develops the software for those guys sure has a contract with hardware manufacturers.
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I miss the cow spam.
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I've explained this to the morons trying to sell "laser eye treatment" in the street, watched them do their "drowning fish" impersonation, and then try to get back onto script with "but everyone thinks wearing glasses is so ugly. I really do not give one tenth of a flying fuck about ugly, compared to not wanting to see the blade of that scalpel comin