What we want to know is, what functional use would a transparent display have, aside from forcing you to keep one hand firmly positioned over the back of your phone on public transit?
Well, allowing a touchscreen on both sides of a device offers exciting new possibilities for mobile design. If a phone with a transparent display does emerge by the end of 2013, we expect to see some games take full advantage of that.
And think of the potential for photography — instead of needing a camera, users could theoretically frame up a photo right through the screen and take a screencap, eliminating the need to open up an application when it comes to time-sensitive photo ops? (Although we're not quite sure how that would work, as the phone would still have a camera.)
Aside from that, Polytron's prototype for a transparent smartphone is cool, but if that's all it is, we don't see this technology selling very well once the novelty wears off.
On the other hand, once everyone is done freaking out about Tony Stark-level mobile tech, people can start applying this technology to everyday life. We can easily see transparent displays popping up in store windows for advertising or notifications, helmet visor heads-up displays, maybe even car windshield HUDs or marquees on the back of car windshields to display choice messages to tailgaters.
We also see some transparent TVs in the future, mirrored or totally clear and mounted on the wall. No one would even know it's a television until someone turns it on. Scaling up this technology could be profitable for Polytron.
Polytron's display is made of "Switchable Glass," an OLED display that uses liquid crystal molecules to scatter light, CNet reports. When electricity runs through transparent wires, the crystals line up to form images and text. The quality and clarity of these images will probably play a role in how well these phones do on the market, but hopefully providers in the U.S., Japan and Korea will be able to make it work.
The only things that are not transparent are the batteries, headphone jack, SIM and SD cards and microphone. Polytron intends to hide these and other components, such as a camera, behind darker glass.
One user on Gizmodo suggests the transparent display could come in useful for texting while driving. (Please don't.)
Where do you see this technology going?
