Would You Use a Laptop with a Transparent Screen? (cnn.com) 92
At CNN's product review site, one electronics reporter wrote they were "dumbfounded", "surprised," and "shocked" by the transparent screen on Lenovo's ThinkBook Transparent Display prototype. "This Micro LED screen is no slouch, either; a Full HD panel with up to 1,000 nits of brightness..."
Let's get the big issue out of the way early: Lenovo is merely boasting what it can do, not what it will do. That's what a "concept" product means, of course. That said, it's still the most exciting thing I've seen in laptops in quite some time...
Thinking of major use cases for such a laptop, I basically considered any time you're out in public and want a more complete world view. While websites with white backgrounds look more opaque than transparent, the black backgrounds of a Notepad document and animations of space and fish fit the experience much better, as I could see the plants that Lenovo had placed behind the screen. The more websites use dark modes, the better this will go, too. Admittedly, I can also imagine some will blanch at the fact that such a laptop completely removes your privacy as a user. From those shopping for loved ones in the same room to those working on important business documents, the ThinkBook Transparent Display laptop could use a non-transparent mode, just like the LG OLED T offers. That said, I'm sure teachers would love to see what their kids are working on in the classroom.
The Verge calls it "an exceptionally cool-looking device that's capable of some fun novelties." The key draw is its bezel-less 17.3-inch MicroLED display, which offers up to 55 percent transparency when its pixels are set to black and turned off. But as its pixels light up, the display becomes less and less see-through, until eventually, you're looking at a completely opaque white surface with a peak brightness of 1,000 nits... How often, of course, do you actually want to see the empty desk behind your laptop? Would it be beneficial to be able to see your colleague sitting across from you, or would it be distracting? One of Lenovo's big ideas is that the form factor could be useful for digital artists, helping them to see the world behind the laptop's screen while sketching it on the lower half of the laptop where the keyboard is (more on this later).... 720p still feels like a very work-in-progress spec on a 17.3-inch laptop like this, but at least text shown on the screen during my demo was perfectly readable... Lenovo's transparent laptop concept feels like a collection of cool technologies in search of a killer app.
And yet Lenovo's executive director of ThinkPad portfolio and product Tom Butler tells the Verge he has "very high confidence" this will be in a real laptop within the next five years. (The Verge add that he "hopes that revealing this proof of concept will start a public conversation about what it could be useful for, setting a target for Lenovo to work toward.")
But would you use a laptop with a transparent screen?
Thinking of major use cases for such a laptop, I basically considered any time you're out in public and want a more complete world view. While websites with white backgrounds look more opaque than transparent, the black backgrounds of a Notepad document and animations of space and fish fit the experience much better, as I could see the plants that Lenovo had placed behind the screen. The more websites use dark modes, the better this will go, too. Admittedly, I can also imagine some will blanch at the fact that such a laptop completely removes your privacy as a user. From those shopping for loved ones in the same room to those working on important business documents, the ThinkBook Transparent Display laptop could use a non-transparent mode, just like the LG OLED T offers. That said, I'm sure teachers would love to see what their kids are working on in the classroom.
The Verge calls it "an exceptionally cool-looking device that's capable of some fun novelties." The key draw is its bezel-less 17.3-inch MicroLED display, which offers up to 55 percent transparency when its pixels are set to black and turned off. But as its pixels light up, the display becomes less and less see-through, until eventually, you're looking at a completely opaque white surface with a peak brightness of 1,000 nits... How often, of course, do you actually want to see the empty desk behind your laptop? Would it be beneficial to be able to see your colleague sitting across from you, or would it be distracting? One of Lenovo's big ideas is that the form factor could be useful for digital artists, helping them to see the world behind the laptop's screen while sketching it on the lower half of the laptop where the keyboard is (more on this later).... 720p still feels like a very work-in-progress spec on a 17.3-inch laptop like this, but at least text shown on the screen during my demo was perfectly readable... Lenovo's transparent laptop concept feels like a collection of cool technologies in search of a killer app.
And yet Lenovo's executive director of ThinkPad portfolio and product Tom Butler tells the Verge he has "very high confidence" this will be in a real laptop within the next five years. (The Verge add that he "hopes that revealing this proof of concept will start a public conversation about what it could be useful for, setting a target for Lenovo to work toward.")
But would you use a laptop with a transparent screen?
It's super cool, but... (Score:3)
Re:It's super cool, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Lenovo = shitty drivers (Score:3)
"drag and drop selecting just did not work with the touchpad"
That is not a flaw of the demonstrator. That is a general problem with the whole company. They seem to be incapable of providing reliably working drivers for their devices...
Try to use their laptop together with their dockingstation on a Windows basis. It's an horrible experience.
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This is how the Apple Vision Pro works.
You can set the background to transparent and see what is happening around you while your apps are suspended in front of you.
It makes sense in goggles. I don't see the point in a laptop.
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What gave you that idea? Apple's thing, like just about every other VR headset, uses outward facing cameras to simulate transparency. This display is transparent.
While there are endless applications for that kind of display, this is just a tech demo. Lenovo isn't trying to sell you a goofy laptop.
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Re: It's super cool, but... (Score:2)
Actually, not supremely useful in AR. The rendering would be impossibly close to eyes if directly emitting. To correct for that, you need lenses. The lenses would destroy the passthrough.
Basically, the bare glass ar approach requires a projection system to have the light be at the right focal length. Also the approach is fundamentally limited in field of view and opacity. So camera and applying to display is the popular approach now, well so far as any ar is "popular"
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Basically, the bare glass ar approach requires a projection system to have the light be at the right focal length. Also the approach is fundamentally limited in field of view and opacity. So camera and applying to display is the popular approach now, well so far as any ar is "popular"
The XReal Air 2 Pro glasses that I'm wearing right now use birdbath optics to project the image. As far as opacity goes, they're about as dim as my regular sunglasses, but I can press a button to dim the front lens more. I can adjust the image however I like, from barely visible to completely opaque.
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But can it make a fully opaque rendering of an AR object on top of a completely undimmed real world? I've never heard it pulled off, and it seems like you would have to have some form of dynamic blocking to even have a hope, since the reflection can only ever add to the passed through light, never subtract. So the AR content has to overwhelm the real world content.
Re:It's super cool, but... (Score:4)
> I'm not sure what the value is outside of the coolness factor.
As a monitor, not much but as a heads up display I can see several interesting uses, such as "smart windows" which can be both windows and displays at the same time. If the light output can be made one directional, then you can have privacy too as you look out your house through the transparent display window but others looking in see nothing but you.
That would be a "home of tomorrow" kind of thing and unlikely to be installed in anything but designer houses etc.
But in a museum it could be used to provide transparent displays that can be seen from both sides. It would also work in art and photography exhibisions perhaps. When thought of as a window, a structural element in a buiding that also can display stuff but still allow window like fuctionality then I can see many uses.
I also like the idea that it could be used in something like a ATC tower, the windows in the tower could highlight and plot details of aircraft within a certain range aurgmenting the standard radar system.
Then of course it would revolutionise augmented reality, no longer will you have to look at a camera image but can look at the real world with graphics overlaid on top.
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But in a museum it could be used to provide transparent displays that can be seen from both sides
The only issue being the reverse view from the back. People would have a hard time reading text for example, or perhaps making sense of a physical layout.
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I was not considering text because of that reason. It would have to be graphics.
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Then of course it would revolutionise augmented reality, no longer will you have to look at a camera image but can look at the real world with graphics overlaid on top.
We actually have that now in more than one affordable consumer product. The XReal Air 2, for example. Though if you're in the market for one of these lightweight AR headsets with real transparency, it might be worth waiting a little while for the Immersed Visor. It looks to be a real game changer.
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As a monitor, not much but as a heads up display I can see several interesting uses, such as "smart windows" which can be both windows and displays at the same time.
Indeed. A car windshield using this kind of technology for a google maps style overlay directly on the road instead of having to take your eyes off it could be incredibly helpful. Could also provide much better warning about surprise turn-only lanes coming out of nowhere in areas you aren't familiar with.
That said, I'm also imagining a future where marketers try to hijack such a display to force ads on you, or hackers setting off a light-show to try and cause accidents. The potential for abuse is terrify
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This is why I always mount my phone on my dashboard so that when I look at the phone to check my route, the change is much quicker than if I have to look down and away from the road. I can still see the road ahead and can change from watching the phone back to the road almost instantly.
Re: It's super cool, but... (Score:2)
I think the bigger issue with the âoewindshield is a displayâ concept is that the focal point of the driverâ(TM)s vision should be somewhere around 10m in front of the car or greater.
This is the main reason why HUDs in cars are not common and/or have optical limitations. Integrating the optics required to focus the image further away than reality requires a long optical path, or at least hardware sophisticated enough to simulate it. Generally speaking, these approaches have eye relief and fie
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Fascinating tech (Score:2)
Pretty cool though, so I'm sure there will be a market for it.
Re:Fascinating tech (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember when transparent windows were new and all the rage. It looked so cool. Of course I had to get myself a good desktop background so there was something for the windows to transparent to and I admired the slick look of my xterms gently blending into whatever was behind them. I have a vague memory of hacking together some keys to bump up/down the transparency of whatever was in focus.
And then...
well transparent windows may have been new, but in principle the technology didn't stop us from having background pictures in terminals before that. Turns out there's a reason we didn't because making the text less clear sucks, and transparency was just a fancy way of doing that.
I don't think I've actually used a main transparent window since about 2 weeks after I first got them in the early noughties.
I'm not that big of a sci-fi fan (Score:5, Informative)
This is not a laptop to use in public, or even when other people could enter tthe room. Even if there's nothing to hide, it's still private what I do.
Any view of what's behind the screen, moving or not, would be an extra distraction factor from what I'm watching on the screen.
And who knows how clear the display is during the day, seeing how I dislike bright backgrounds and have set everything possible to dark colours all the time.
It doesn't make sense to me even in science fiction, but that's the only place I see any real use for this.
Re:I'm not that big of a sci-fi fan (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's a possible usage case though. Assuming a traditional clamshell design with a slim base and keyboard with illuminated key lettering, fold the screen flat against the keyboard, turn off the keyboard LEDs, and you've got a conventional, if slightly bulky, tablet without the need for a complicated and fragile hinge that lets you turn the screen through 180deg like current hybrids. If the screen is touch sensitive and it includes a stylus, I can see that might appeal to at least some graphic artists or people looking to do some light work or reading while they're commuting, yet still have a traditional laptop available once they arrive.
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Great idea. You could use old school LCD to put a black layer on the back side so that it could be opaqued, or a newer electrochromic technology if that would work better.
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This is not a laptop to use in public, or even when other people could enter the room.
At least not without a modesty panel.
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This. Sadly, manufacturers will move ahead regardless of security, and rest assured the ignorant consumer in a trigger-happy litigation system will want to sue the first time someone walks by and “steals” their credentials. It’s only slightly worse than the sticky note on the bottom of the keyboard.
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An attacker would not normally be able to steal credentials by looking at the screen. Masked passwords have been pretty standard for... 20 years?
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“If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.” - Cardinal Richelieu.
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I always thought transparent screens in sci fi were stupid.
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Tracers! (Score:3)
I'm assuming the transparent screen can be laid flat over another screen or page to enable tracing. You know, because they're tracers.
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You know that most graphics programs support layers, right? You put an image into a layer, add another layer and start tracing if that's what you want to do. No expensive hardware required.
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Rather have non-transparent with camera (Score:3)
No, because others can see from the other side what you are typing (passwords) or viewing.
I'd rather have a non-transparent screen that replicates what would be seen if transparent by way of a camera.
Bonus points if I can choose an arbitrary web cam (e.g. baby monitor or remote meeting participant) as the background video instead.
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Ideally your password only shows up as ******* (or hunter2 if you want to be weirdly specific), so that shouldn't be much to worry about.
I worry more about the readability of websites if all the stuff behind your screen interferes with the text.
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> Ideally your password only shows up as ******* (or hunter2 if you want to be weirdly specific), so that shouldn't be much to worry about.
Until you make it plain text to see why you cant log in today...
Then once you have logged in, what is shown is also not to be seen. We have many monitors here that are augmented with privavcy filters specifically to stop people seeing HR or financial information.
Whats the point of the starred out password when you have a transparent screen that gives out the followin
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Until you make it plain text to see why you cant log in today...
If your password is so easy to remember that someone can note it at a glance then you have a different problem. Ideally your password should be complex enough that you can out right shout it across the room and yet people still can't log in.
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I had a coworker who did actually use "********" as their password. This was a long time on a non important sysetm but... made me LOL at the time !
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No, because others can see from the other side what you are typing (passwords) or viewing.
It doesn't work that way. You can see what's behind the screen, but people behind you can't see what is on your screen.
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Anyone remember ... (Score:4)
Anyone remember the trend of making a mock transparent screen by taking a photo of whatever sits behind your monitor, setting it as your desktop wallpaper, then taking a photo of your PC from the same angle? I think it was mid-2000s. It's always been a cool concept from an aesthetic standpoint, although I remain to be convinced that it has much value otherwise.
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What Really Happened (Score:3)
Not only did the people in the meeting clap, they clapped frantically and bounced up and down in their chairs when this was suggested. Their $40,000 smiles gleamed.
Meanwhile, the last eight guys at IBM that were involved in making a product that sold more than 14 units were being led from the building by security carrying cardboard boxes.
Add an LCD behind it (Score:2)
This would be usable if there was a grayscale LCD behind it to control the opacity. Its opacity would correspond to the alpha channel of RGBA framebuffers, but there is probably no GPU out there that is capable of driving a separate LCD with every fourth byte.
Businesses will love these (Score:2)
Why? (Score:2)
Ob transparent aluminum jokes here (Score:2)
As well as, "Computer? Computer?"
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Why did the tank have to be transparent anyway? Its not like the Whales needed to see out...
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They didn't. They used plexiglass.
https://scifi.stackexchange.co... [stackexchange.com]
Useful for higher-ups for a couple weeks (Score:3)
Buy one to show those further down the food chain that you get new cool stuff they don't. Use it for a couple weeks, point made, now get back to a screen that makes more sense.
Definitely has applications (Score:2)
Ah, I can see the possibilities. (Score:5, Interesting)
As a monitor I dont think there will be much call as most monitors used by most people in most settings add some security to the fact that people cant see what you are doing.
But:
- Augmented reality glasses will now work as intended. That is to say you wont be looking at a camera image, you can have proper transparent glass that "paints" the view with the graphics you expect to see.
- Museums and exhibishion halls/events. A display that can be seen from multiple directions but also be transparent to not obscure other tings and people.
- Windows with smart features. Like with AR use only its a proper window with in-built transparent display capabilities. If the light can be made to be seen only by the occupants then you can have privacy as well as a big window to look out from. This might only be used by concept houses and the rich but it could also be used in schools.
- Keeping with the smart window idea, I thought it could be used in an ATC tower to augment the current radar displays, where the aircraft can be highlighted on the window itself!
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Except for parallax. If you move your head at all, the overlay no longer lines up with the background. Could maybe be solved with eye-tracking software in the camera. (Is there a camera in the display? Or is it one of those stupid up-the-nose cams on the keyboard?)
This might be about the only useful application.
See above about parallax, but eye-tracking won't solve it for multiple viewe
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Jesus christ. I'm an Amateur photographer that likes using TLR cameras.
I totally forgot about parallax.
Perhaps then with my ATC idea it would be best as a heads up map/direction indicator to assist in locating aircraft you wish to view, although I have a feeling ATC staff will easily just know whare they are looking anyway :D
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Why not stack a bunch of these displays into a cube and have an actual 3d display? I imagine it would be extremely expensive at this point to have a display with suitable thickness, but you would be able to control actual "voxels" if data.
They would have to work on the transparency. If each layer reduced light by 50%, that would get opaque pretty quickly. But if they could get that down close to 0%, it would be a very neat display!
transparent screen are only good for Hollywood (Score:2)
so that you can see the actor's face. otherwise, either the camera would have to be awkwardly positioned behind the screen, with the screen blocking the view, or the audience would be staring at the back of the actor's head to see what's actually on the screen.
oh, and it makes everything looks futuristic, somehow.
I don't think they have much purpose in the real world, though.
Movie prop only (Score:2)
Like those glass panes they write on in "situation rooms" in tense thrillers, this is a movie prop solution, not applicable in real life.
Hell, no (Score:2)
That is about as stupid and unusable as it gets. Sure, nice piece for an exhibition, but work with it? Probably next to impossible.
In actual use . . . (Score:3)
This would be great to show everyone at the coffee shop what I'm working on
Or to monitor what the kids are up to.
It could have been worse (Score:1)
You all forget one obvious use case: I imagine that if this were an Apple product, you could buy the $239 iTransparency accessory, which is basically a white sheet that clips to the back of the screen via magnetic inserts, or maybe Reality Distortion Field singularities. For $259 you can also get the bi-sided sheet, one side black, the other white, so you can choose between dark mode and light mode on the fly.
Of course the sheet will have some DRM chip installed, so if you dare to hold some blank printer p
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+1 Insightful since /, hasn't given me mod points in months.
Would You Use a Laptop with a Transparent Screen? (Score:2)
Would You Use a Laptop with a Transparent Screen?
No.
Hell no. (Score:2)
Imagine sitting at your desk staring at your screen and your annoying cow-orker comes up and stands behind your desk so you get a nice view of his crotch through your screen.
How about text contrast against a potentially moving background?
I already makes me want to reach through the screen and punch a web developer in the face every time I come across a web site that has a dizzying full motion video background that makes the entire site impossible for me to even look at.
I've long since gotten tired of transl
Suggestion: Use LCD to make the screen double-side (Score:2)
I think there is limited utility to having the screen be transparent. However ...
How about darkening the back of the display with liquid crystals when up?
Then when you close the lid, you turn off the liquid crystals revealing the screen: mirror the pixels and enter the computer into tablet mode.
I think that a double-sided screen would be much more sensible than a 360 hinge, and having to flip the entire laptop around.
Of course, the keyboard would have to be made so that it is completely black whenever its
Still waiting on tactile buttons to come back (Score:1)
fuck no. (Score:2)
Dark mode is considered harmful in my opinion. It has some rare uses but in general I vastly prefer bright windows.
The most exciting thing? (Score:2)
Umm, peripheral vision? (Score:2)
Even your 17in 'desktop replacement'/'m
Sigh. (Score:2)
How about this...
We make better quality screens, cheaper.
I'd far rather that than literally ANY other gimmick like folding screens, see-through screens, etc.
If you can't make it cheaper or better (including more resilient, brighter, etc.)... then don't worry about the screen. Find something else to do instead.
Gimmicks don't sell me on ANYTHING at all. I'd far rather have a basic, non-gimmicky thing that was slightly better and/or cheaper.
Transparent xterms (Score:2)
Anyone remember that on Linux (maybe other OSes too) you can make your xterm terminal window transparent to any amount you want. It's cool and distracting. I always set transparency to 0% to block it. Likewise, transparent displays probably have their use, but it's very limited in application. I would turn the transparency off.
Transparent monitor for desktop: Sure. Laptop? Nah (Score:2)
As others have pointed out, we tend to use laptops in public environments where there are both other people that we might not care to have looking on, as well as possible moving objects/people/birds in the background. Also, the screen isn't so big that it's really obscuring much of a view.
But as a monitor for a desktop? Sure. A large, transparent monitor means I wouldn't always need to face the wall to type or have a big "wall" blocking my view of other parts of my office, or people I might be meeting with
Use case (Score:2)
I can see using this, if you tape cardboard over the back of it.
Accessories for transparent screens... (Score:1)
...like privacy covers, custom backgrounds; all leading towards the thought of why bother in the first place.
Looks cool on TV and in movies... (Score:2)
But a transparent screen seems to me like it would be incredibly impractical in real life.
Take for example the hand terminals from The Expanse [pinimg.com], which look very similar to what Lenovo is doing here. Everything behind the screen would be nothing more that clutter in your field of view. You'd also need to be very careful, lest what's behind the screen wash out what you're trying to look at on the screen, (white text on a transparent screen with a white wall behind it, for example.)
No, I don't think I'd use so
Would you read a transparent book? (Score:2)
No. Jesus. What a stupid idea.
Driving (Score:2)
I could have this on my dashboard, cutting code on the way to the office.
Time saver!
I want more walls. (Score:2)
Corporations will love this. First they evicted you from your office and put you in a cubicle. Then they packed multiple people into a single cube so that you didn't just have to wonder what that noise was, your neighbor is basically sharing your desk. Then the lowered the cube walls so they could see you better, with the side effect that anytime someone walks by it draws your eye away from what you are working on. If you were lucky you could acquire a big enough monitor or set of monitors to cover your
Of course not (Score:2)
No, not ever. Other peopling seeing my content (mirrored, but hey) and me distracted by stuff coming through. I want to minimise distractions, not increase them.
Liquid Crystals (Score:2)
Liquid crystals are cool. But those ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it. LCD calculator displays started out as transparent with a reflective background, requiring room lighting to act as a backlight. They learned in the 70s it was a bad idea and soon added built-in lighting. I guess we're back to that bad idea so we can learn our lessons again.
It's finally a reality!!! (Score:2)
No (Score:2)
Obvious use for work (Score:2)
It would allow me to stare off blankly into space without taking my eyes off the screen.
Good for education (Score:1)
Naked (Score:2)
A glass 'keyboard' (Score:3)
A virtual keyboard, really? A computing device without n-key rollover is a toy. Forget the no-privacy display that will make children (and employees) behave, a touch-screen as the keyboard, reduces accuracy, comfort and speed.