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New Research Could Lead to Transparent Displays
An anonymous reader tipped us to a ScienceDaily story about advances that may lead to transparent transistors. By combining inorganic and organic materials, we may reach the goal of transparent surfaces that can display information, with no visible wiring marring the effect. The article cites HUDs on car windshields, and targeting goggles for soldiers, but I'm sure we can think of some additional interesting uses for such a technology. From the article: "High-performance, transparent transistors could be combined with existing kinds of light display technologies, such as organic light-emitting diodes, liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and electroluminescent displays, which are already used in televisions, desktop and laptop computers and cell phones ... Prototype displays using the transistors developed at Northwestern could be available in 12 to 18 months, said Marks. He has formed a start-up company, Polyera, to bring this and related technologies to market."
Well, it's Christmas time here so I've got a little time to do some reading. And frankly, I'm excited to hear about the progress on greener technologies forthcoming next year. I was just reading about a projection TV set that will use laser to increase range-of-color and decrease power usage by a third -- win-win! And it got me to thinking; given that the average computer uses about 52,000 pine trees worth of energy every day there's probably a lot of slack that can be tightened up to restrict wasteful consumption. While one could probably save the most by dimming the 'Brightness' setting on his monitor, I strongly suspect the greatest savings will be realized by emphasizing energy saving technologies in the personal computer.
Sure, spending another hundred or so on efficient computing wouldn't make the video games run any faster, but if it was mandated we'd probably notice huge dividends in nationwide energy consumption. Energy that could then be used to run our cars, or air conditioning, or substinence farming. Until then I suppose we could just use the coal from our Christmas stockings to offset the electric bill, lol.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
There is a bunch of concepts for how to use the transparent displays. Most of all I like this: http://www.gizmowatch.com/entry/eye-freezing-futur e-imac-concept/ May be it will become true some time soon....
Nice idea, but we don't need high-tech transparent transistors. Existing HUD technology would do the job just fine.
And I'm sure the transparent display would cost a lot more to fix.
Which means all car windshields should be made of it in about 10 years.
A blog about stuff.
The whole point of a HUD is that you don't have to shift focus between the display and objects in the environment. In aircraft HUDs, the image is collimated, so it appears to be focused wherever the pilot happens to be looking at the time. This can't be achieved by simply putting a transparent monitor on the windscreen in front of your eyes, it requires a projection system. The type of display they are talking about here would not be much better than a regular instrument panel, because you would still need to shift focus from the outside environment to the windscreen. The same goes for a targeting system built into goggles, it would be useless because you would need to shift your focus to the targeting display a few inches from your eye to the target several hundred meters away.