Transparent Screens on the Horizon?

mhesseltine writes "According to United Press, researchers in Japan are developing transparent transistors. This could bring about see-through screens like those in Minority Report. Also, I imagine would be better heads-up displays (HUDs) for vehicles, layered flat panel displays, and new methods of interfacing with information screens."

Comments

Augmented Reality

[jeroen94704]

Transparent displays would also be a significant advance for the field of Augmented Reality.

Stacks

[JohnFluxx]

You could have several behind each other - build up a 3D display ;)

I don't know how close you could get one behind another, but even if there is say 1cm gap between each layer, you could still have cool effects.

Transparent screens already availible

[adzoox]

To me a better type of transparent screen, more like the one used in Minority Report already exists (by conventional means)

By embedding reflective but transprent phosphors and other chemicals/compounds into plexiglass or glass one can project images onto that glass with a normal projector.

I did this as an experiment just after Minority Report using a tiny xb31 HP projector and plexiglass. Gives a really neat effect - just need low light / dark room (also as in Minority report)

Although the layered screens i suppose couldn't be done this way.

Re:Transparent screens already availible

[hype7]

To me a better type of transparent screen, more like the one used in Minority Report already exists (by conventional means)

I love this "relate /. tech to movie" kind of thing. Whilst the movie itself sucked, Red Planet was full of cool future stuff; including some cool future uses for "transparent screens"; they folded one out and as it progressed across the body it overlaid bodily injuries. Another use was as a map; the screen overlaid directions and bearings, whilst still letting you see the terrain behind it. Very cool.

Nothing beats the mechanical dog out of that movie, though. That's what an AIBO should be like! :)

-- james

Videoconferencing

[justfred]

One application that could use this technology is videoconferencing - put the camera behind the monitor.

This is already possible with one-way mirrors reflecting the screen, but one-way transparent screens would make it easier.

Instead of having the camera at the top of the screen and looking back and forth, put it directly behind the middle of the screen, about 2/3 of the way up. Or have smart software that would track where the other person's eyes are and put the camera between their eyes so you could look directly at them.

I believe that this is a big factor in why videoconferencing always "feels strange" and perhaps part of why it hasn't caught on.

Already exists!

[green pizza]

I got to play with a few such monitors at the Silicon Graphics Inc (SGI) developer conference last week. Deep Video Imaging has a multilayer display, exactly as you described. Also, SeeReal has a truely stereo (one image per eye) monitor that works by tracking the user's eye position. The downside of the SeeReal monitor is the lack of support for more than one user at a time.

Hitachi already makes these

[deanj]

Hitachi makes these already:

Look through this

There's a show going in Baltimore this week that has other vendors of this sort of technology too.

Re:Can't Wait!!!

[wfmcwalter]

The light and mirrors solution is, from a safety perspective, greatly superior to a transparent screen. Existing projection-reflected-from-windshield systems use lenses to project the image focussed at infinity. That way a driver (whose eyes are already focussed at infinity when looking at the road ahead) doesn't have to pull focus in to 1m to read the HUD and then push focus back out to infinity to safely read the road ahead. Most of the time spent looking at your speedo on a normal car is the focus shift time, rather than the eye-movement time, so a projected HUD like the GM one you describe is the best solution. The HUD reticles used by military pilots also use projectors, and similarly project the pitch-ladder and other indicators at infinity, so they appear to float spectrally "out there" in front of the aircraft.

For regular computer display purposes, a transparent screen doesn't seem terribly useful, due to contrast and "visual noise" interference from whatever is behind the screen (mitigated a bit if the screen is frosted).

Still, there's plenty of possible applications for this:

• Advertising displays (bus shelters, hoardings, etc.)
• Programmable windows (push a button for tinted, another for clear, etc.)
• Perhaps active military camouflage
• Layer a bunch of these in a big sandwich and you've got a decent 2.5D display

Re:Imagine the possibilities...

[vsprintf]

If your peripheral vision is so bad that you have to look down to see your speedometer, you shouldn't really be driving anyway.

Hmm. If you can focus a mile ahead in full sunlight, and still read a shaded speedometer with two scales (MPH and KPH) and all the other gauges, YOU 'DA MAN!! Keep eating those carrots, 'cause they're evidently working.

HUDs, I think not.

[mohaine]

I imagine would be better heads-up displays (HUDs) for vehicles

Normally HUDs have the requirement of 'Focus as Infinity'. This allows you to read them without refocusing your eyes. A flat LCD wouldn't achive this.

As a side effect of of the infitity focus, the size of a displayed image on a HUD doesn't descrease as you get farther away, only the viewable area gets smaller. It is pretty neat to be able to read the small letters on a HUD from across a room, even if you have to read them one at a time.