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Displays Television Wireless Networking

Samsung Debuts World's First Transparent MicroLED Screen Is At CES 2024 (engadget.com) 30

home-electro.com shares a report from Engadget: On Sunday night Samsung held its annual First Look event at CES 2024, where the company teased the world's first transparent MicroLED display. While there's still no word on how much it costs or when this tech will find its way into retail devices, Samsung showcased its transparent MicroLED display side-by-side next to transparent OLED and transparent LCD models to really highlight the differences between the tech. Compared to the others, not only was the MicroLED panel significantly brighter, it also featured a completely frameless design and a more transparent glass panel that made it easier to see objects behind it. LG also unveiled a similar piece of tech: the company's "first wireless transparent OLED TV." It's called the OLED T and supports 4K resolution and LG's wireless transmission tech for audio and video.

You can watch a demo of Samsung's transparent microLED screen on YouTube.
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Samsung Debuts World's First Transparent MicroLED Screen Is At CES 2024

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  • by sheramil ( 921315 ) on Tuesday January 09, 2024 @06:15AM (#64143475)
    windscreens for cars.
    • In a Fiat Panda, is should be dead easy to make a heads-up display: just put a surface mirror on the "shelf" in front of the instruments. You don't need anything that fancy to do that. I think there are also commercial heads-up displays for cars, which are just projectors you aim at the windscreen.
    • While there's still no word on how much it costs or when this tech will find its way into retail devices

      ... or what the point of this is apart from showing off what Samsung can do.

      And for those saying "windscreens for cars", look up the physical properties required of these and the regulatory conditions that apply, and then look at what this panel provides. Not gonna happen.

      • by Junta ( 36770 )

        Note I'm thinking cars would continue to do traditional projection based HUD (cheaper, probably lighter, and you need the dashboard area *anyway*) when applicable, but I would say these things would be viable.

        You don't have to have the demonstrated panel as the *only* layer in the windscreen. The question would be whether it poses any challenges with how it breaks, and I wager it can be made consistent with that cencern.

    • Heads up displays have been around for decades, I had one in my 2002 Corvette Z06 and my Lincoln Corsair SUV has one now. They aren't that expensive and they still aren't very popular for some unknown reason. Teslas with only one big screen are screaming for a heads up display and even they don't offer the option. The cost of transparent display windshields would be exorbitant, especially for some thing that is prone to replacement.

      Transparent displays are a super cool looking technology in search of a pr
    • Do you know what happens to one of these when impacted with an object? If the answer isn't "we absolutely do, it is guaranteed not to turn into shards of sharp glass flying at your eyes" then it's not ready for automotive windscreen applications.

      • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 ) on Tuesday January 09, 2024 @01:39PM (#64144595)

        It's plastic, so turning into shards of glass would be pretty impressive.

        • Yeah, because plastics can't ever shatter into sharp pieces and cause damage when met with extreme force, such as a windshield impact at highway speeds.

          • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

            Possibly. Never seen one shatter into shards of glass though. As I said, that would be quite a trick.

            • Well congratulations on missing the forest for the trees then.

              • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

                To be less glib, your objection is silly. Modern LED manufacturing is pretty flexible when it comes to substrates. If someone wanted an LED screen on a windshield they would laminate them and throw rocks at them until they demonstrated something that appeased regulators. I expect they wouldn't have to do much, the current substrates are probably fine.

                You wouldn't use a windshield mounted screen as a HUD because the whole point of a HUD is to create an image that is focused *past* the windshield.

    • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      windscreens for cars.

      Could be extremely useful as a safety feature. Anyone who drives at night knows that for some reason, black is a very popular color of clothing to wear in the dark. Especially when it's dark and rainy, then all the ninja pedestrians decide to jaywalk in the middle of traffic.

      Even a simple IR camera in front can help point out such people hiding to jump in front of you.

    • Windscreens in cars have to be laminated and it is not clear that is compatible with this technology. Plus, at a current cost of $150k for one of the screens it is going to be some time before they become affordable for this sort of use.
      • by Khyber ( 864651 )

        "Windscreens in cars have to be laminated"

        Guess how that polarizer layer is applied to all your flat-panel monitors?

        Vacuum lamination.

        Source: former LCD repair tech for a now-defunct Asian sweatshop. Those laminators are LOUD.

        • So what? The question is not whether you can laminate glass, it is whether laminated glass is compatible with the technology. The laminated layers in a windscreen are a polymer that can also twist and polarize light - which is why you can sometimes see colour patterns in them with polaroid sunglasses. Anything that does that is likely to mess with a separate polarizer layer. Indeed, if you do need a polarizer layer then it will not work for windscreens at all since it will make driving at night far too dang
    • It could be an alternative to projector HUDs but would probably be best inside the windscreen so you have cheaper safety glass protecting it from rocks, weather, etc.
    • Is windscreen the name for windshields in EU or something?
  • it will be used everywhere.

    For example, as we have head up displays in cars today, these will be built as "film" on top of windscreens.
    The last 10+ years we've used the LCD film as "rear mirror dimmer" that uses a thin LCD layer to prevent blending of light coming from cars or the sun from behind, we've also used them in more expensive cars as "privacy dimmers" that fades the windows from clear to dim / foggy / blocked.

    I can't really see them as television sets, Linus from LTT bought one just "because" and

    • I could see this as a TV - when it's on, it's "great", when it's off, it's (almost) invisible. I know some people worship their TVs and set them up in the lounge like some sort of shrine, but for those of us that don't, it could make TV-less life a lot less like "the TV's just switched off" and more like "no TV here at all".

      Sadly though, Samsung will mess it up with their crappy software. They'll force us to have their crappy AI assistant, crappy OS and likely a microphone, camera and quite probably 5G that

    • Current HUDs in cars use a small high contrast display and a mirror to "project" the HUD onto the windscreen. Advantage: you don't have to replace this when you get a rock chip in your windshield.

      Why would you want to make a more expensive windshield replacement to perform a function we can already perform without doing that?

  • It is sure an attraction.

    As for car windshield, possibly for luxury cars. Otherwise, who need their windshield replacement to cost even more than plain film-layered glass?

    Car insurance prices are already skyrocketing with electric cars.

    Driving assistance or autonomous driving or you know, that thing called mass transit systems is what future generation will need, because having individuals moving in personal vehicle weighting tons and needing mating huge amount of Watt to move is not sustainable at all.

    This

  • I cannot help but asking : will this feature the #GSOD ? [youtube.com]
  • Every house window, every mirror within 15y.
    • Does it remind you of the TV rooms in Fahrenheit 451? Now available in a future near you, to project the dystopian society that is now our reality.
  • Everyone on here is talking about how to use this, but no one mentioned the cost. How much for how big? In addition, how is it powered? This thing isn't powered by itself.

    Then there is the issue of durability. People keep saying windshields. What happens when a rock slams into it at 70 mph? How much will it cost to repair it (if it's repairable at all) or replace it? Will this be a specialized product, or can Billy Bob go down to his Walmart and buy a replacement?

    Finally, haven't we had this discussio

  • Now that someone made a wholly transparent screen. Lets add new features that would make it more useful:

    Challenging but possibly useful:
    * Add per-pixel alpha-channel control so the screen has variable transparency so that the screen can be selectively become opaque.
    * Add per-pixel RGB filtering control, so that it can be seen by incoming light, (like classic LCD panels without backlight)

    Now with that, it could become a useful HUD panel. No need to replace the windshield. It would work as sun screen, work in

    • Doing all you ask would require adding a traditional (like, seriously old school) mono LCD panel behind the panel to selectively block out incoming light. Seems like it could be done reasonably easily.

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