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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.
Make the transparency switchable, like with the privacy glass windows/doors that are available for commercial installations. Then we can all have monitors that fade from view and let us see the office through the screen. Probably a ways off from the tech currently available but it is what I hope for one day. I hate feeling like I'm staring at a wall 2 feet in front of me, no matter how fancy the graphics are.
WIndshields? If you can convince regulators that it wouldn't impact visibility, maybe...
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
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That's the first thing I thought, where would Augmented reality with a non opaque fallback mode be important, car windows.
Maybe Glasses too.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
If you thought the high gloss screen on your laptop was bad enough...
This is not news.
Anyone with half a brain could tell you that transparent displays are useless except for some very small niche corner cases.
Until you're checking your ass flab for zits in the mirror and accidentally accept a call from your grandmother.
Really the place this will be useful is where we already have clear glass surfaces: windows, windshields, goggles, etc. But the main purpose there will be for AR or simple notifications. Standing at the window and having updates about what you are seeing or random data that somehow applies. Windshields and HUDs seems obvious. 'Smart' Goggles that give you useful info while working on whatever (chemicals, temperatures, electricity, etc). Or for that extra modern look, a TV that you hang on the wall and is clear while off or displays the art on the wall, but then turns on and 'replaces' the wall/art/etc with whatever you want to watch.
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
A HUD would actually help enhance visibility by tracking road markings, signs, and obstacles that are low visibility, as well as alerting you of events happening in your blind spots. Integrating 3D maps and directions would be handy. Putting your speedometer and other dashboard information closer to your view could reduce time you take your eyes off the road.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
I have a list of applications I'd love to create if these things were readily available. I've been seething for them for a decade. How is it that they can't find applications? I've read university students projects and DIY makers who did frieking awesome stuff with them. Maybe the price point isn't good? Or the technology isn't any good? Or have the engineers been watching too many scifi movies and not going around the real world looking for applications?
And that's about it. If you need a head's up display, you need transparent displays. But if you are not displaying info directly on existing reality, there are few good reasons for a transparent monitor.
If they become cheap enough, I could see car windshields being replaced by transparent displays, particularly for driverless cars.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
London: transform any day into a bright sunny summer day. downside: more pub brawls ensue after complicated arguments and tense standoffs arise from disagreements about blustery and sunny.
Canada: images of alberta in february could be replaced by video of the leafs Borje Salming waxing your car which you tacitly know damn well has been under 7 feet of snow since october.
America: imagine a mcdonalds window that makes the food appear to have been cooked from ingredients that came from actual vegetables and known animals. Or a convenient window treatment that could some day make Dick Cheney look like a real person instead of a villain from an episode of captain planet.
Good people go to bed earlier.
I can see a lot of possible uses...
- easy HUD in cars : windshield but also on the external mirrors (augmented reality) for example... ...
- at supermarkets, on fridge doors
- on semi-transparent windows next to doors to show who is on the other side of the door while letting light get through when it's off
basically, on see-through windows for Augmented Reality, on windows (normal or semi-transparent) to let light though when device is off, on mirror or windows where if the device is off you need full mirror/window functionnality (like car mirrors), on glasses, ...
You do not need a transparent display for a HUD.
Now for wearables where you put the display into glasses it could be handy. You could have a good display in a profile pair of glasses.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
They should have linked "AR-based visualization"
Not everyone knows what Armadillo-Rhinoceros-based visualization is. It's pretty much zoo-centric terminology.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I saw these in Vegas last year. Not at a trade show, in shops being used for serving beer, so obviously the cost isn't atrocious:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KAbiQLkuQ0
And people have been doing smart mirrors for ages, and mirror display TVs. Not sure what the "new" hype is about.
No more green screens: but the weather person behind the TOLED screen and we can see both the radar map and where they're pointing.
Maybe they won't even bother with a sweater.
A casino I visit has transparent displays over some slot machines. They've taken LCD diplays and removedance the back lights you can see the wheels through the animated images.
After we have noticed that software that looks great in movies but are completely and utterly shit if they were used in reality (like, say, databases that display EVERY SINGLE false photograph of a potential culprit before finding the correct one, or interfaces where you have to wave your hands about instead of typing on a keyboard), we now find out that hardware that looks great in movies is ALSO crap for real applications.
Who would have thought.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Vending machines
My final job plan is to setup an office were the employees are facing each other and the only input devices on each computer are voice controlled and a vertical transparent touch display.
After I take of picture of the office of the future I will retire and go down in history.
I can think of many, many uses for such a screen. I think it can be distilled as such: you put them anywhere additional information through A/R would be useful, but where the viewer is fixed in space relative to the screen and needs to maintain that perspective to the world. So, perhaps the glass dividing a bank teller and a bank customer. How about a construction worker in a backhoe or crane looking through a transparent display that highlights buried gas lines, or potential danger areas. In fact, any automotive windshield has at least some potential for a transparent display. There are teleprompters that have a method of doing this, but perhaps transparent displays may do it better. If nothing else, the teleprompter only displays text...a transparent display would also allow the onscreen talent to look at images or video without breaking gaze to the camera.
Just some ideas.
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
The problem is, you need to refocus. And while devices that project the image into a considerable distance do exist (they're employed on military airplanes), they are quite expensive and offer only a limited field of vision.
Ezekiel 23:20
The problem is, you need to refocus.
You need to do that anyway if you're going to look at your dashboard or your satnav's display.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I saw the transparent LCD display on slot machines at a trade show in Vegas over 6 years ago. They were mechanical reel slot machines with the front glass as a clear panel that could draw lines or pictures over the matching symbols. This video shows one that is a bit fancier than the ones I saw years ago, but after the spin you can see the lines draw across the matches.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
I thought the whole point of this was *not* having to look away from where you're driving? If not, dashboard it is.
Ezekiel 23:20
They are also available in a number of cars as well. I had a Corvette Z06 with a heads up display that reflected a standard display off the inside surface of the windshield. It looked like a vacuum fluorescent display for speed tach etc. floating near the front of the car.
Greed is the root of all evil.
First off, arcade games have been using these for years. Skip to 45 seconds in for an example (volume warning - it's in an arcade so it's loud): https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
There's another arcade game with little fish bowls that's also transparent. It's really cool just to look at.
Also, many years ago, around 20 or so, I took a calculator apart and removed the back-most layer of the LCD and... voila - it was transparent. This capability has existed for decades (in fact all LCD displays are transparent - it's only the more modern OLED where that hasn't been the case) but there have always been backlights or some other material placed behind them to make them contrast as much as possible.
Better known as 318230.
I think e-ink/e-paper would be a much better technology for this idea.
And for much the same reason -- videophone conversations work well in movies as they more closely resemble the "talking head" interactions the public is used to in films, but in the real world, people don't necessarily want someone else looking at their face while they talk.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I'm wondering how that would work. You're thinking layering transparent displays to some depth appropriate for 3d effects?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
With some kind of multi-touch multi-user software, I would love to see this on a bus, or a train...
You could be able to see maps, transit information, restaurants nearby without losing the view of the city. Even if you don't have AR it could be really interesting
Haven't companies like caddilac, and mercedes already been doing HUDS for years now?
I thought the whole point of this was *not* having to look away from where you're driving? If not, dashboard it is.
Augmented reality goggles, or Google Glass 2.0, could accomplish the same thing, be more flexible and upgradable, and cost far less.
"Near the front" is unfortunately not what I was talking about, at least several meters would be required, tens of meters are better. But I suspect that even cheap solutions like this are somewhat usable and better than having to look away from the windshield.
Ezekiel 23:20
Yes, a head-mounted solution has the obvious benefit of having vastly smaller and more lighweight optics and not having to deal with head movements relative to the optical system, which is the bane of all real-world HUDs.
Ezekiel 23:20
Your arguments also work against lighted speedometers, speedometers that are graduated past 55 mph, and pretty much anything on the dashboard, including radio controls, fuel remaining, etc. After all, by driving more carefully, you eliminate the need for all these staples too.
A significant number of people become sick from this.... kind of makes it a non-starter for serious applications.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Citations for any of this? I don't have one so what I'm saying is no more believable, but I do recall a study that showed HUDs were more of a hindrance than a help.
I don't have any citations, but I do have one car that has a HUD. In all honesty, I thought it would be a stupid gimmicky thing, but I wish every car I owned had one now. Granted, mine is fairly simple, but well designed. It displays a digital reading of speed as the largest item. There's a bar graph of the tach across the top, bar graph for fuel along the right side, oil pressure and turn signals. What I found surprising is that the road is not as far in my peripheral vision when I glance at the HUD vs. the instrument panel. Plus, for me at least, my eyes don't really need to refocus (or not as much) to see the speed on the HUD. The numbers are large enough for me to see them.
I saw something on /. a few months ago that mentioned that the amount of information on a HUD can become a big distraction after a certain point. So I can see how it would be a problem if turn by turn directions are up there and radio information, etc. I would think anytime you need to actually read words, or need to more than glance at something, it's going to be an issue.
GM (quite a few different labels have them as options), Mercedes, VW (Audi and probably other high ends), Hyundai, Lexus, Land Rover, and BMW (including Mini) just to name a few.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
I'd use these to keep an eye on time stealing employees (or rather make them use these to make it easier for me to monitor their time theft).
Most linux users don't know this, but the man pages were named after Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris fsck'ing hates noobs!
I think it would be a good idea for you to try test driving an existing vehicle with a heads up display if you're really curious. The way GM did it seemed pretty ideal. They could have made the virtual image further away (the system had a basic lens system for this) but I think there are solid reasons for having the virtual image appear where it did. Its far enough away for the eyes' depth of field to make focus a non issue. I'm not an expert in the field but I think it has something to do with increasing the cognitive load of studying an image in the distance at the expense of sensing things in closer proximity with peripheral vision.
Greed is the root of all evil.
Having flown with a HUD, I'd say that the current generation of "reflect off the windshield" is completely adequate for speedometer, tach and such. However, a transparent film is not a good answer for low visibility, as those need to be projected exactly over the real obstacle. That isn't possible with an OLED display unless you have the head tracking correct and figure out how to deal with the parallax between the eyeballs. There's a valid complaint that the image will be focused in the focal range instead of infinity, but moving it up will still be an improvement, as the hundred milliseconds of refocus time has to occur with a dashboard anyway.
This is the first thing that popped into my head, Additionally it is a rather large market if successful.
CSI? You mean the show where they have a fingerprint search program that fetches a full set of fingerprints and a picture of the culprit from the database, renders it on the screen, THEN notices that it's the wrong guy, fetches the next set of prints and picture...
Whoever develops the software for those guys sure has a contract with hardware manufacturers.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I don't even like a background image on my desktop. Just a blank blue colour and a few key icons for programs and shortcuts to data.
I drove a grand prix that had speed and I think maybe fuel and turn signal indicators which was just projected onto a tinted section at the bottom of the windshield from inside the dash.
What kind of car do you have with a HUD?
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home
I miss the cow spam.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
The Planar display is OLED based and does not require a light source, as mentioned in the video at the link in the summary. Not sure about the Samsung display although I suspect the same is true based on the provided images, unless they put a light source behind the mirror.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
I'd like this simply because due to my upper body height, most cars force me to either:
1. Have my head hit the top
2. Put my arms in an uncomfortable position
3. Have the steering wheel blocking the speedometer
So it would be a huge help for me, since I wouldn't have to choose between comfort and being able to see my speed.
Yes and aircraft since the 1960 or even farther back to around 1900 if you count reflector gunsights.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Obviously
Wow this is great! now I can have multi-Layered displays. Like virtual desktops, but layered on top of each other. One could have a game running, another videos, another some desktops. I frequently have more than one computer on at the same time and it's a pain to keep switching between them. Can't wait for those Dell multi-layered displays.
Not to worry, Wolf Blitzer and the acronym alphabet soup primetime police crime dramas will find great ways to distort reality with these displays.
Eh, those photos show more vivid light than the mirror receives, I doubt that is the case.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
Overlays during surgery. See through where the doctor is working, but with other info highlighted.
Astronomy. Highlight stuff in the sky. You could have one in front of a telescope.
Smart glasses - even if there was backlash for Google Glass.
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
The general population has no idea how to use a HUD, it would cause more problems than it solves. Military pilots train hundreds of hours to properly use a HUD, your average driver will end up focusing on the pretty-shiny-flashy objects two feed in front of them rather than the light that just turned red and the pedestrian that just stepped out because he has a walk sign and is looking at his phone instead of watching traffic. I really don't think we need HUD systems for the general population, ever.
No, we need self driving cars if we ever want to be safe from the idiots behind the wheels.
--- Keep the choice with the user..
The problem is, you need to refocus.
You need to do that anyway if you're going to look at your dashboard or your satnav's display.
When you look down at the instruments, you know you need to look back up to drive safely. Most people can barely operate the automobile as it is, and you want them to believe they can't focus on the HUD full time? Sorry, but the majority of the population (driving or not) are not overly intelligent. Something like this will confuse the hell out of them and cause more accidents, especially with those that think it's a good idea to text while driving (further evidence of the lack of intelligence in the general population).
--- Keep the choice with the user..
I was very disappointed to find nobody had mentioned Peril Sensitive Glasses.
Mine does as well, and it also has turn by turn directions in it, which I find one if it's most useful features. It's not a map, but just simply a bar that indicates how far until the next turn and the direction of the turn. It is really nice in the suburbs where intersections can be fairly close together.
I think I had this conversation with Grim Reefer before as well, and I have a 2014 corvette stingray.
That has been working for decades using reflection. It's not terribly helpful in daylight - but exactly that problem would affect a transparent display.
Plus there's the minor detail of repair costs. That springs to mind since the wife's car got broken into using a brick a couple of months ago, which bounced off the inside of the windscreen cracking that.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
If you can't change your focus between infinity and the metre-or-so range to a windscreen, then I suspect you've got some other serious issues going on with your vision. When did you last see your (opthalmic) optician? You should be doing it every couple of years at lest, if you're over your mid-30s.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
I've explained this to the morons trying to sell "laser eye treatment" in the street, watched them do their "drowning fish" impersonation, and then try to get back onto script with "but everyone thinks wearing glasses is so ugly. I really do not give one tenth of a flying fuck about ugly, compared to not wanting to see the blade of that scalpel coming towards my eye and having to NOT BLINK. They seem to have a mental problem accepting the concept that "ugly" isn't the most important thing in the universe.
Actually, not one twentieth of a flying fuck.
* - (well, hardened, formerly-molten plastic)
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
That offers the additional benefit of not needing to constantly check your speedometer to see if you are "safely" above the posted limit.
If I just drive, and don't check my speedometer, I will most assuredly be going well over the legal 10mph over the posted speed limit (Maryland law). If I just flow with traffic, or rely on my ability to read every road sign to gauge my speed I will be running 15-20 over the speed limit. If you have trouble with these things, perhaps you are the one who is an issue.
I check the speedometer for what it is used for, to keep my speed down into the legal range, not to make sure I am only going 15 over the speed limit.
Perhaps you are the one who needs to go back to driver's education, as it seems you don't know what a speedometer is for.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?