So if we only consider self-contained transparent displays, this is indeed a first?
Sure, this kind of display has its own use cases, as the article describes. But those are pretty niche.
But I want one. I am normally a form of function guy, my entire setup looks cobbled together but is comfortable and speedy... But man I wish I could live in the future and at my age I am ready for playing pretend with a laptop like that.
Transparent displays make sense where you need to present information in a view of the real world, ie a HUD.
They make absolutely jack shit sense everywhere else. You've got less contrast, and even worse, the contrast is variable across the screen. It could even be moving. It could be exceptionally bad - this screen would be unreadable if, say, a beam of sunlight were striking the floor that is in the background of the display.
The only reason we think transparent displays are "cool" is because scifi authors, TV show writers, and hollywood are fucking obsessed with them. In The Expanse everyone has a transparent phone and my first thought was "how the fuck are you supposed to see anything on that screen!?"
I doubt any company has done usability studies on the damn things. They'll get as far as prototypes like these, people will try to use them, quickly figure out they're complete shit, and all the transparent-specific R&D will have been wasted unless it can be pivoted into HUD tech, but HUDs can't be made like this because the focal length is wrong.
Products like these are definitely not supposed to sell well and Lenovo doesn't expect it to. What it does is deliver a "wow" factor. This is effectively advertising.
I see this as something that might work well as a front window of a car as an extension for the main display, but not as much as a replacement for an actual computer monitor. Cool tech though.
> The most obvious use case would be sharing info somewhere, like a doctor’s office or a hotel desk. Instead of needing to flip a screen around, you could simply reverse the display via software, allowing anyone on the other side to see it while getting an in-depth explanation.
Given the capabilities of audio and text NNs these days, along with such displays, it would actually be plausible now.
- A tv that becomes mostly invisible when turned off would be nice (I think I saw a tech demo recently?)
- A conference room screen on the central table but invisible until turned on would be a step towards the holographs you see characters meeting over in scifi movies. However, I'm not sure how much actual utility it has beyond cool factor - especially since all the text will be mirrored for those standing behind it
... and that's about it. The idea that you could put something behind the screen and sketch it which I've seen floated sounds kinda dumb. Much easier to just take a photo and draw over that.
Ignoring the privacy aspect, as I've found out trying to adjust opacity for my windows etc., working with more than a very slight blurred level of visibility of anything behind the windows is a nightmare, even with hacked up outlines and glows around characters to make them stand out more against a more translucent background.
If you could make the windows arbitrarily opaque but the background translucent, then maybe.
Gimme a real physical keyboard though, and no "AI".
Oh wait...
Lenovo has a history of building innovative laptops, like the recently launched laptop-tablet hybrid with a secondary e-ink display[1]. However the resulting product often ends up being underwhelming and with mediocre user experience.
[1]: https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/lenovo-thinkbook-plus-gen-4
A normal laptop with a display like this would be super cool. But take it so far that you replace the keyboard with a non-tactile pane of glass and I'm glad this is just a concept that won't ever be sold.
This is funnier than you intended.
While the display doesn’t have very good obvious advantages in actual use, that would be cool enough to use just because it’s possible :)
It did remind me of "switchable glass": https://www.smartglassinternational.com/electric-switchable-...
But as an aside, the development of Micro LEDS is pretty interesting, I've never seen it in any prototypes before.
Expect to see a variant in a few sci fi movies and for it to not be seen again.
Jobs would have had a wallop of a joke for this one.
Maybe if it had dual screens and cameras so it could be made to look as if it is translucent from both sides but the 'outside' is faked however you want it to be.