
Xiaomi explains more about how its under-screen camera works - notlukesky
https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2019/6/5/18654365/xiaomi-camera-under-screen-no-notch-transparent-display-technology
======
petra
Mounting the camera behind the screen could create eye-contact in video chats.

That's the biggest difference between video chat and face-to-face
conversations, and it creates low trust.

And while xiaomi isn't the first to achieve that[1], xiaomi is a consumer
company, and their price point is very affordable.

So i hope they target this problem. they could be very successful, with good
implications(environmental, social), hopefully.

[1][https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/dve-launches-
camera...](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/dve-launches-camera-
embedded-eye-contact-telepresence-display-powered-by-microsoft-skype--vidyo--
google--hangouts--zoom--cisco--polycom--and-blue-jeans-300351566.html)

~~~
avian
> Eye-contact in video chats. That's the biggest difference between video chat
> and face-to-face conversations

This issue is pretty far down the list IMHO. Above it are fixing the
obligatory 5 minutes of "Can you hear me? I can't hear you" before the actual
conversation starts.

Face-to-face conversations also lack "Please mute your mic when you're not
talking because the background noise is annoying". "Did you forget you're
muted?". "Can you repeat that, I can't understand you". "The video/sound is
cutting out". "Where's this echo coming from?". "Please say something on your
end". "What's that noise?". "Please use a headset next time". "Sorry, the call
dropped out". "Let me call you again, maybe this will fix the issue". etc.
etc.

Video chat is one of the great unsolved problems of computing. Yes, camera
location is there as well - especially on Dell laptops that for some reason
have it looking up from below into your chin. But that is really one of the
lesser issues as far as my experience goes.

~~~
joshspankit
Sounds like you’re limiting your view to work-related calls. If I could have
real eye contact on personal calls, it would make a huge difference. My
current technique of looking just below the camera _already_ makes a huge
difference, and it’s only a hack to make it seem like eye contact for the
other person.

~~~
Zenbit_UX
You would have to look directly into the camera, no? Why just below?

~~~
tazard
I would guess because if you always looked directly into the camera, it would
be harder to watch the video/see the other person at the same time.

~~~
Zenst
It is natural to look at the person and eye contact when talking to them.
Hence we don't look at the camera, though I'm sure some people can and do
this.

------
nolok
The amount of tech turned from idea to actually manufactured in order to reach
the holy grail of "full screen cover" is impressive. Ultrasonic fingerprint
reader, under the screen camera and sensors, ...

I am not sure I buy into the need for it on my cellphone; while I'm not like a
lot of people from HN and actually enjoy a large phone and I was one of the
first Note customers, lately I switched from a S9+ to a S10+ and I actually
prefered the 9's screen compared to the infinity display with its hole (or
concurrent and their notch), so I guess I need to wait until they finally
figure out how to not need such tricks.

But despite not feeling like I need / like it, I can't stop but be impressed
at the tech and the speed at wich it is made. The first Galaxy S phone was
barely ten years ago.

------
sandworm101
So the days of putting electrical tape over webcams are over? The black hats
of the world rejoice.

In all seriousness. I am very careful about webcams. I would never own a
screen with such a hidden cam. And the emergence of this tech is a little
unsettling as it defeats an effective and very practical security measure.

~~~
usaphp
I never understood the reason behind covering a camera on a laptop. I mean,
what exactly are you afraid of? Someone can film you sitting in from of a
screen? A microphone would be a more dangerous threat in this case, no?

~~~
dangwu
People do Other Things™ in front of their laptops...

Imagine that you never did anything in a certain room of your house except sit
quietly. Are you saying that you’re okay with anyone standing outside that
room staring into it at anytime?

------
tomglynch
There's a video of it here:
[https://twitter.com/Xiaomi/status/1135447561202937857](https://twitter.com/Xiaomi/status/1135447561202937857)

------
anbop
This is going to be killer for establishing eye contact while
videoconferencing. They just need to move it further down for that.

~~~
mistercow
It seems like the eye contact problem should be very easy to solve with a
little CV and image manipulation. Particularly when you're on a phone or
laptop, the adjustment needed is really tiny.

------
Someone
The end game could be to have millions of low quality (possibly single-pixel)
cameras in your screen, with software combining the images into a single one
from a location that can be (somewhat) controlled in software.

IIRC, that’s what was proposed in Starfire, in 1992.
([https://www.asktog.com/starfire/](https://www.asktog.com/starfire/)), where
they could also use those tiny cameras as a scanner (place a paper on top of
the screen, and read out all the pinhole cameras)

~~~
gnicholas
Apple filed for patents on this circa 2001.

~~~
mises
Which means we're only two years from them expiring.

~~~
gnicholas
Not sure when they were issued.

------
neilv
All my smartphone/tablet/laptop cameras have labelmaker tape over them
normally. I can't do that with an under-screen camera.

~~~
3jckd
I was trying to come up with a reasonable solution this. I wouldn't trust any
software solution in the OS that "disables" the camera because even if hacking
of the device is not possible, some sort of settings-phising might be.

It seems that the only way to deal with this, would be to have a hardware
switch that disables the camera, e.g. like iPhone's mute toggle.

~~~
layoutIfNeeded
But the OS can still get hacked to ignore the state of your toggle. E.g. the
iPhone’s mute toggle doesn’t stop the alarm clock from using the phone
speakers.

~~~
3jckd
Maybe I didn't make this clear but by hardware I meant literally physical
switch, as in e.g. power delivery through the circuit.

------
StavrosK
This is very cool, but I wish marketing material told people that skin oils on
their lends cause soft photos. Most people don't know to wipe the lens before
taking a selfie, and the resulting photos look terrible.

~~~
vwyxp
Don't know about Xuamaiu phones, but Pixel phones already warn you if the
camera lens is dirty when you take a picture.

~~~
baybal2
I found that rather annoying.

How much time do you think they spent to write an algo to detect dirty lenses,
and how much megacycles is spent to run it? So much for an annoying popup.

~~~
nolok
> How much time do you think they spent to write an algo to detect dirty
> lenses, and how much megacycles is spent to run it?

Compared to all the other things running when using the camera ? Nothing.
Modern phone camera are like 50% cpu processing, both preview and capture.

By comparison it's rather easy to figure out there is something in focus far
below minimal distance.

> So much for an annoying popup.

The very vast majority of people prefer to be warned about it and correct,
than figure out later that the photo they wanted is ruined.

~~~
jdietrich
The Pixel 2 has an extra 8-core processor purely for processing camera images.

[https://www.blog.google/products/pixel/pixel-visual-core-
ima...](https://www.blog.google/products/pixel/pixel-visual-core-image-
processing-and-machine-learning-pixel-2/)

------
CarVac
I remember a long time ago when I first heard about OLED displays I was
promised that they could be effectively transparent, and this is the first
time I've heard of this property actually being used.

------
Narretz
I really hope full screen coverage (and later foldable) phones will lead to
smaller high end phones again. Even the Galaxy A class phones have become
massive. And anecdotally, starting last year a lot of my friends that upgraded
their phones have started to complain about the size. So I hope the mainstream
has found its limit and the manufacturers will react.

------
ksec
I wonder if FaceID will work underneath the OLED. Since I assume the OLED
screen may distort the Dot Sensor.

So assuming this will work, wouldn't all Smartphone be looking exactly alike?
I am pretty sure Xiaomi, Huawei, Vivo, Oppo, will push this to sub $400 Price
point two years after it appears. Assuming this becomes available in 2021, we
are talking about by 2023/2024 every smartphone on the market will very much
the same.

I am going to assume Qualcomm / ARM CPU will improves up to the point CPU
performance no longer matters. And everyone would be buying the same Sensor
from Sony.

It will literally be Apple's value ( Privacy ), Security ( FaceID ) and
Software ( iOS ) that separate between iPhone and Android. The hardware could
be mostly the same. But iPhone would cost double the price.

~~~
skykooler
> I am going to assume Qualcomm / ARM CPU will improves up to the point CPU
> performance no longer matters.

Unlikely. CPUs are hitting the limits of Moore's Law.

------
bane
My guess is that whenever the camera is active, nothing can be displayed over
it. In the demovideos I've seen, the display goes to black around where the
camera is.

------
exabrial
Can Xiaomi be trusted? They make some stunning hardware.

~~~
lucb1e
Sure, about as much as hardware from any other manufacturer. Maybe Fairphone
might be more trustworthy than the rest because they care about the supply
chain and are not that popular (hence they're less likely a target), but other
than that, I don't think I'd trust any brand over another based on their
country. They all get their parts from all over the planet and the software is
also from all over the planet.

I'd rather look at their profit model, which in Xiaomi's case is not just
selling phones: they bake advertisements into the OS and are open about that
being part of their profit model. Which would be fair enough if everyone
understood how technology works and where your data goes, but very few people
really understand that. For now, you can opt out and/or root or flash your
phone, but this kind of thing usually becomes mandatory once the majority of
people got used to it and there won't be a big outcry. Turning it on mandatory
affects everyone, but turning it on as opt-out gives the media little to talk
about; then, when most people have left it turned on anyway, it's a much
smaller change to make it mandatory.

------
Causality1
I hope all these future in-display cameras are within the status bar area as
depicted and nobody gets the bright idea to put it dead center of the screen.
I'm rather obsessive about display perfection and that little dot of shadow on
a content area would be more than enough to drive me crazy.

~~~
alanbernstein
I think that defeats the purpose? The main benefit that I see is she contact
in video chat, where you'd want the camera pretty close to the center. If you
don't get that, why bother at all?

~~~
Causality1
Same reason for notches and glass backs and removing headphone jacks and
curved screens: fashion. Smartphone sales are all about being trendy no matter
how stupid the trend is.

------
pier25
I've been super impressed by Xiaomi's products.

The other day I found a deal on a Mi A2 for only $150 and it feels like a
$400-500 device. Plus it runs Android One, so pretty much stock Android.

I'm a bit concerned about getting China spyware to be honest but AFAIK Xiaomi
has been so far legit.

~~~
lucb1e
Do note that Xiaomi turns the OS itself into an adware platform. For now it's
opt-out, but we all know how these things evolve.

Having a Huawei myself, I am not opposed to Chinese phones or anything. I'm
just hesitant about any ad-supported tech, or tech that you can't own. I
wonder if they ever stop supporting rooting/flashing your phone to stop people
from undermining their profit model. Which would be fair enough if you
understand how technology works and where your data goes and still choose to
buy it, but (percentage-wise) almost nobody understands it sufficiently to
make that choice.

~~~
pier25
On Android One too?

~~~
lucb1e
I think so, but I don't know. I don't own one ;)

~~~
pier25
I do and I've never seen that option

------
knolax
Does anyone know if they had to create a new type of OLED for the required
level of transparency or if all OLEDs were already transparent? The source
tweet had a graphic but it wasn't too clear.

------
walterbell
Apple and Qualcomm have been exploring in-screen ultrasonic sensors for
TouchID.

[https://www.tomsguide.com/us/apple-acoustic-pulse-
fingerprin...](https://www.tomsguide.com/us/apple-acoustic-pulse-fingerprint-
sensor-patent,news-29334.html)

------
nomel
Wouldn’t there be artifacts (maybe diffraction) from a view through the OLED
pattern?

------
buboard
I wonder if the marketers who invented “full screen coverage” as a selling
point are measuring the ROI of their invention

~~~
nolok
It's not a marketer thing, it's a people thing. TV went through the same
thing, for the same reason. Practical or not, better or not, it _looks and
feel_ cooler to most, and that's enough for people to want it.

------
Roritharr
I wonder if this was also stolen from Samsung. Samsung was actively working on
this in parallel to their folding displays. If both of these key technologies
have been stolen from their R&D Department that would be a cause for major
concern.

~~~
felipelemos
This is an accusation without any proof.

Probably every major mobile phone manufacturer are working on this to solve
the notch problem.

~~~
Roritharr
It's not an accusation, it's speculation. The theft of their foldable display
technology is proven, so it's relevant to speculate where this is coming from.

[https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/30/tech/samsung-china-
tech-t...](https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/30/tech/samsung-china-tech-
theft/index.html)

~~~
felipelemos
You are right, but this source could be in the parent comment. Without it
seems just a silly accusation.

------
gonesilent
Love how the AD copy is bigger vs the info graphic

------
baxtr
No notch required might have been a great value prop when the iPhone X was
introduced. But today? I have the feeling the notch has become a status
symbol, that other phone manufacturers copy.

EDIT: I don’t really the downvotes. Look at the “top 2019 android phones”, I
counted 7 out of 15 having a notch... compare that with the ridicule and
outrage when the X was introduced.

[https://www.wired.com/gallery/best-android-
phones/](https://www.wired.com/gallery/best-android-phones/)

~~~
nolok
Not really. The top of the line android doesn't even really try to copy apple
anymore. Some copy it because they can't just have the old "huge bezel at the
top" design anymore, but eg samsung leaped above it with mini-bezel and then
infinity-o, and xiaomi is going for under screen tech.

And it is guaranteed that Apple will move to under-screen too once it's
mature. The notch was a stop gap, no matter how used to it you think you might
be, it's still a screen waster. Though with Apple's "we made that choice so it
was right we won't go back", I wonder if they will ever go to an under the
screen fingerprint sensor now that it works well. As great as face unlock is,
they are many times where I want to unlock with my phone on my desk and
fingerprint is superior, I was glad to recover it on my S10+ after 2
generations of missing it (scanner being backside).

~~~
threeseed
Apple won't move to under screen.

There is way too much going on in their notch compared to their Android
counterparts:

[https://www.iphonefaq.org/archives/976228](https://www.iphonefaq.org/archives/976228)

