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MIT Develops Inexpensive Transparent Display Using Nanoparticles
rtoz writes "Researchers at MIT have come up with an innovative approach to creating transparent displays inexpensively, while providing wide viewing angles and scalability to large sizes. To create the transparent display, silver nanoparticles are embedded in plastic, tuned to scatter only certain wavelengths of light and to allow all other wavelengths through. In this example (video), it is tuned to scatter only blue color using 60nm silver particles. The researchers believe that it can be easily enhanced to a multicolor display by creating nanoparticles that can scatter other primary colors. The ability to display graphics and texts on an inexpensive transparent screen could enable many useful applications. For example, they could bring navigation data to windshields of cars and aircraft, and advertisements to the sides of skyscrapers. Cheap 'stick-on screens' could be developed using this technology. The messages broadcast on nanoparticle screens are accessible from virtually every angle. Transparent screens themselves are not new; for example, Google is working on Google glass. But they are expensive. This MIT invention will help to produce transparent displays easily and inexpensively."
I'm sick of people coming up with these inventions that use some form of exotic material. Silver, gold, palladium, rhodium ... for God's sake, use something that is not an investment grade metal.
Eh, I can see the most loathsome terrible people in the universe getting a little ad-revenue out of store windows.
Blue screen of death will have a whole new meaning if that pops up on your windshield.
If you watch the video (skipping the useless talking parts), you will see that the product demos are in front of a very dark backdrop. When the random hand picks up a MIT mug behind the active elements on the screen, the purple color becomes very washed out by the mild lighting off the mug.
I'm not sure whether this is a raw power problem or a limit of the method they are using, but it needs something more before it can even work in a dimly lit room. If they get it to work under standard fluorescent office-lighting, it'll have some use. If they get it to work under the fierce glow of a gravitofusion reactor, then I could believe the car-HUD claim in the summary.
All high-rises will become huge billboards. Shades of our future Blade Runner aesthetic.
Huh. Loathsome and terrible? A store window seems like the perfect place to be selling things. People have been putting animated advertisements in them for decades. That being said, this seems a rather expensive way to do it. Glass is much cheaper to replace.
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
This is an unlisted wall!
and I will never buy your product again. Hell if I'm in an accident due to your advertisement and I survive, I'll sue you into oblivion and guess what, Your insurance company is not going to cover you.
One thing this tech may be used for is improving vehicle safety by providing a better HUD (heads up display) for things like a NiR (near infrared) and UV camera that allows me to see the fucktard driving w their headlamps off just after sunset because he thinks he don't need them.
How about seeing the damn idiot who's broke down on the shoulder in the fog/rain/snow/night, whatever makes it more difficult to see. These are the kind of uses I can think of that have a great benefit to us if they make it cheap enough to actually be applied as a film - we already do this for safety glass so incorporate it into the safety film. Hell you even have the ability to use it for highway safety information such as "Rt 3 lanes closed 2 miles - Merge Lft".
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
Hey look! The people who arranged for the death of Aaron Swartz have come up with something new.
It's called The Ring. You should watch it!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
...it's actually being used in something I can buy. I get tired of being teased by an awesome idea that ultimately never gets used in a practical consumer application.
Aaron arranged for Aaron's death. What did he come up with?
"Death By Conspiracy Theory"
It's all the rage these days. I'm thinking I need to come up with something memorable when I drive off a cliff in a stolen flying car.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
According to the abstract, this is a projection screen only. They fill a transparent sheet with tuned nanoparticle subpixels, and they project monochrome light onto the subpixels that are tuned to the color of light they want. So, it still requires an external monochrome image projector with at least three times the resolution of the "transparent display". It'd be simpler to just fill a transparent sheet with *regular* silver particles and use a *regular* color projector. The science is cool but - as usual - impractical for this particular use
...is as a projector screen that is only reflective at one very specific wavelength. It doesn't emit any light...there are no pixels...nothing about it changes what parts light up.
It's still quite novel...i'm not sure why they couldn't be more specific (or less misleading?) in describing it.
Keep in mind it's not totally transparent - see how the table looks yellow behind it? Add red and greed and you're going to reduce the incoming light further. They said it can be tuned...so could be changed to avoid any of the peaks in LED, CFL, and daylight. Will be interesting to see where this goes...but if they start painting cars and buildings with this it's going to do odd things to the incoming light.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
I'm curious if this can display black. One big problem with AR glass displays is drawing the color black. This could be a big a pretty big deal for AR glasses!
ralphbarbagallo.com
It reminds me of something you'd see in a 70's or early 80's British scifi TV show, like Doctor Who or Blake's 7. Some sort of plexiglass being used as a monitor.
Be seeing you...
I'm thinking I need to come up with something memorable when I drive off a cliff in a stolen flying car.
Pretty much all cars that drive off cliffs are flying. Not for long and the landing sucks, but flying none-the-less.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
It's a cool demo, and a neat idea, but I keep hoping that the era of projection of images is winding down, with direct displays taking over. Even with advanced aspherical optics and laser projection there's limit to how close you can get to your viewing plane and still have a good display image.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I'm thinking I need to come up with something memorable when I drive off a cliff in a stolen flying car.
Pretty much all cars that drive off cliffs are flying. Not for long and the landing sucks, but flying none-the-less.
This is why I need something out of the ordinary - zapped by aliens, crushed by a giant Terry Gilliamesque foot, that sorta thing.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Huh. Loathsome and terrible? A store window seems like the perfect place to be selling things. People have been putting animated advertisements in them for decades. That being said, this seems a rather expensive way to do it. Glass is much cheaper to replace.
Always expensive the first generation is.
Each succession more accommodating is.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
They could also be used to develop transparent displays for, say, a really cool looking cell phone or tablet! And then ten seconds after buying it, everyone would realize how hard it is to read on them.
It will be like glossy vs matte on your laptop screen: you will know that it looks cool until you need to use it, but idiots buying them will make it hard to find anything else.
I guess I probably shouldn't worry about minor annoyances in consumer electronics in the future based on undeveloped technology...
Isn't this the most likely use of this technology?
That occurred to me to, but I think it is a safe bet that a pane of glass will *always* be cheaper than glass plus nanoparticles plus circuitry and power. That being said, I'm sure there's a point where it'll eventually become cheap enough to make an entire storefront window out of it, and realise some benefit from the visuals over more traditional forms of advertisement.
Assuming storefronts still exist then, and assuming it becomes common to use, I'd move on to the main point. What's the big deal? Store windows basically are nothing *but* advertising...
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
Stack a bunch of these screens into a cube or sphere to create a volumetric display.
-ubuntu others as you would have others ubuntu you.
To be useful for windshields, I think it would be necessary to allow light in from the outside (into the car) regardless of wavelength. I watched the video but it wasn't clear to me that they could make the reflection only occur on only one side of the surface.
Monitor bandwidth usage on IIS6 in real-time: http://www.waetech.com/services/iisbm/
But how much cheaper? And is glass plus replacement animated neon sign cheaper than glass plus nano particles plus electronics (which might also include laser tripwires in the glass for alarm systems)? Is the neon sign as versatile as the nano particle glass? The nano particle glass can even be sponsored to pay for itself, and with a capacitive touch screen somewhere on the glass could be used as a store catalog.
http://hhgproject.org/entries/perilsensitivesunglasses.html
Cool, p0rn while I'm driving.
I can see day when people have their car drive them somewhere while all the windows play surround-screen movies. Of course, this will mean more entertainment for the overly-entertained, and more social detachment for the already socially-deprived, but who am I to stand in the way of progress?
Weren't OLEDs supposed to deliver a lot of that same stuff a few years ago? What ever happened with that?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
That occurred to me to, but I think it is a safe bet that a pane of glass will *always* be cheaper than glass plus nanoparticles plus circuitry and power. That being said, I'm sure there's a point where it'll eventually become cheap enough to make an entire storefront window out of it, and realise some benefit from the visuals over more traditional forms of advertisement.
Assuming storefronts still exist then, and assuming it becomes common to use, I'd move on to the main point. What's the big deal? Store windows basically are nothing *but* advertising...
Well, actually, what they were saying was that the actual display was a sheet of plastic stuck onto the glass. Meaning that you could retro-fit an existing window.
This could be even more interesting if it can be done as in the paperwhite displays, where the image consumes no power while static. You could then easily have your own programmable "stained glass" windows, Not to mention a new approach for automatically-shading windows.
Speaking of paperwhite displays, at least one major retailer has been peppering their stores with fairly sophisticated units, radio-updatable. So I doubt they'd balk at a reasonably-priced transparent display.
I don't see why you got modded down. Guess it's the unforeseen consequences.
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
except that it was in color, but granted probably wasn't inexpensive:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1WGFMAKLT4
That is interesting, but doesn't change anything on the point of replacing a vandalised window or cheapness of glass :)
But, yeah, my main point was, I don't get why the parent, way back up there, was so worked up about a store window having advertising. That's what those large front store windows are *for* and even today are often filled with transparent plastic decals, paper posters, store merchandise, TV screens, even animatronics.
And certainly if this comes down in price it could be worth augmenting all the other storefront stuff with. Assuming storefronts still exist :)
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
Actually, it looks like the background is translucent, not transparent. Also, the foreground looks almost opaque!
I'm working on a real transparent display, where both the background and the foreground are completely transparent.
Where do I get me some of that venture capital?
Have you tried turning it off and on again?
What they need to do now is figure out a way to enable/disable pixels that show the light...
Once that is done, they would be able to make an active display rather than a passive screen.
Then they can put a LOT of layers... and have a 3D display, that is usually transparent.
If you have an old LCD screen with a burned-out CFL tube, you can pull of the back diffusers and have a fully-transparent LCD display.
Sure there's no self-illumination whatsoever so you need to have it against a bright background (eg a window during the day), the the effect is rather novel.
Most of the power needed to drive monitors is in the backlight, so chances are the power supply will be unnecessary. You'll probably be able to power it from the +12V/5V lines of your computer PSU.
If you're lucky and get a good model you can power the whole thing with just +5V from a USB port!
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
If flying means "moving through the air without touching ground", then true. And pigs can fly too.
If flying means "generating lift", then false.
Is that really the official MIT logo? Terrible...
Only the store and advertiser will be able to determine if it's worth the money to them. Ads aren't cheap now.
Re: "Add red and greed..."
So that's what the G in RGB stands for! What does the B stand for, Blasphemy?
if it will prevail ahead of carbon nanotubes, not on a large scale at least, because silver is precious and I doubt our masters want everyone going around with extra devices that use it but then again, if its a minuscule amount, maybe I'm wrong. And as long as sufficient recycling is set up also.
... the "wake me up when it displays full colour" messages?
So say we all
"The bullet flew through the air and hit me in the shoulder." I guess that doesn't meet the second definition, but it's not uncommon usage.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.