Transparent Displays Are Here, But They're Pretty Useless

An anonymous reader writes: Samsung has debuted the first commercial installation of its 55-inch 'mirror' displays at a salon in South Korea with a transparent OLED screen overlaid over a mirrored surface to allow interaction. The Samsung product rivals an equivalent TOLED from Planar, with both intended for high-end use in the retail display and exhibition space. However both manufacturers are struggling to find practical applications for the much-awaited technology. Transparent displays have been a staple of sci-fi films such as Minority Report for decades, but only, it seems, because they helped to open up scenes which would otherwise have been difficult to film. With the pending advent of AR-based visualization, the innovation of the clear monitor seems not only to have come too late, but also offer limited practical use, even if its current breathtaking prices were to descend to the consumer space.

Comments

Re:They have a use - heads up displays

[Goldenhawk]

Not so simple as transparent displays. I built a HUD for my car a few years ago, and proper optics are essential to the usefulness of a HUD. Essentially, you need lenses or curved mirrors or specially-tuned diffraction gratings to refocus the image some distance away - preferably many feet ahead of the car, so you don't need to refocus on the windshield.

Having information presented at the same depth distance as your windshield, but in the same general direction you're already looking for at-a-distance viewing, is distracting and hard for the eye/brain system to tolerate.

Here's a pretty good overview of HUD optics.
http://www.mikesflightdeck.com...