
Transparent OLEDs - ChuckMcM
https://oled.com/oleds/transparent-oleds-toleds/
======
crazygringo
I'm excited for transparent OLED's simply so that laptops and monitors will be
able to put the webcam behind the display, ~1/3 from the top.

Then videoconferencing software can automatically move the image of the person
you're talking to so their eyes are roughly centered on that point.

And finally everyone gets to make direct eye contact again!

~~~
mrfusion
I’m curious why software can’t correct this now? Messenger can make me look
like a sheep, can’t it move my gaze?

~~~
crazygringo
It can, I've tried gaze correction software, but it has the unfortunate side
effect of making the speaker look possessed. Total uncanny valley.

We humans are sensitive to every tiny detail of the eye, because we express so
much emotion through it. It's no joke that the "eye is the window to the
soul". Gaze correction software literally winds up looking like it messes with
your soul.

Maybe someday we'll invent gaze correction that actually looks realistic --
but because it involves not just moving the eyeball, but opening/closing the
eyelid (the eyelid moves as our eyes move vertically, like for a webcam),
therefore moving the eyelashes, involving compensation with the lower eyelid,
and more... it's going to be really hard.

~~~
blululu
I recall once having a conversation with someone working on computer vision at
Facebook, and they mentioned that the company had spent a considerable amount
of talent & resources trying to get this feature to work cleanly and they did
not get past the uncanny valley problems.

------
ChuckMcM
For a long long time, science fiction movies have used transparent displays to
seem more "futuristic." However, _actual_ transparent displays have been
underwhelming in practice.

This technology is being use by Xaomi to make a "transparent TV"[1] which in
theory you will be able to buy. (I realize that not all of these sorts of
announcements survive until actual product shipment).

It will be interesting to see one of these "in the flesh" as it were, I'm at a
loss what you'd have behind it that wouldn't make it really really annoying to
watch, but the cool factor could be right up there.

[1] [https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/11/21363861/xiaomi-oled-
tv-t...](https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/11/21363861/xiaomi-oled-tv-
transparent-mi-lux-china-specs-price-release)

~~~
hanniabu
Well for one it would be great to place on mirrors to "try on" clothes, or any
kind of augmented reality like that. They can also be placed on your
windshield for directions and other info like your speed. Gaming monitors with
"designer" internals so that when your screen is off you can see the cool
inside, similar to some watches with exposed gears.

~~~
7786655
You can already do the first one, just put a mirror in front of a regular
display. The light from the display will be visible through the mirror.

------
korethr
Well, this would be another method for achieving heads up displays. Here's an
application that I think would be really cool: HUD retrofits for cars. Take a
transparent plastic film, stick it to the inside of your windshield in a
similar manner like you would apply a tint film to the side and rear windows.
Then, take the connector dangling from the corner of the film and connect it
to the supplied box which connects to the ODB port, or some other standardized
connector which connects it to the necessary vehicle systems.

I could also totally see Tesla or one of the older luxury car brands doing
something similar, where the HUD in the front windows is integrated into the
car systems.

IMO, the harder part will be not integrating the technology in this article
(or something similar), but designing the HUD to be something actually useful
and informative to the vehicle operator, affording them better, more informed
control of their vehicle, instead of being some distracting thing that you
can't disable.

~~~
spollo
That would be cool for aftermarket HUDs. As far as making a useful HUD goes,
some carmakers are already doing that. I have a 2019 Mazda CX-5 and it has a
HUD that is projected on to the windshield. It tells me my current speed, the
current speed limit of the road I am on, if there is a stop sign ahead, and if
I run the GPS system it displays the next cross street, and arrow symbols for
upcoming turns.

I personally find it super useful! I don't need to look down at my instrument
panel as my current speed gets sort of projected on road ahead of me. It's
small and a barebones design but it works.

~~~
wizzwizz4
The thing you describe works by passing an image through lenses, and
reflecting it off the windscreen. That way, you can focus on it and the road
at the same time. For transparent OLED-based systems, you'd have to stare at
the windscreen to look at them – so you wouldn't see them on the road; they'd
look much nearer.

------
jmiller099
Transparent OLED on subway video

[https://en.oledspace.com/a-closer-look-into-beijings-
futuris...](https://en.oledspace.com/a-closer-look-into-beijings-futuristic-
subway/)

~~~
wyattpeak
I can't tell if it's a feature of the screen or just the very dark nature of
subway tunnels, but I really like the fact that the screen goes completely
opaque on the bright blue screens.

Transparent screens could be useful in all sorts of scenarios, but I think
tech demos too often ignore the fact that, most of the time, you want the
image to be as clear as possible, which means opaque.

~~~
grishka
I wonder why no one suggested putting a very thin, transparent monochrome LCD
behind one of these. It would allow darkening the background, as opposed to
OLED's ability to emit light but not block it from passing through. Basically,
you'd use two display technologies to complement each other.

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Renaud
Would this have anything to do with XioMi's announcement for their own
transparent TV?

[https://blog.mi.com/en/2020/08/11/turning-moment-for-tv-
indu...](https://blog.mi.com/en/2020/08/11/turning-moment-for-tv-industry-
xiaomi-unveils-mi-tv-lux-oled-transparent-edition/)

~~~
Koshkin
You bet.

------
hu3
Xiaomi just released their transparent OLED TV. It looks surreal:

[https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/11/21363861/xiaomi-oled-
tv-t...](https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/11/21363861/xiaomi-oled-tv-
transparent-mi-lux-china-specs-price-release)

~~~
seanmcdirmid
They did the same thing with bezel free phones: early adoption of Korean (LG)
or Japanese (Sharp) display tech. I'm not sure what their angle is, but these
early adopter products seem like one offs.

~~~
hu3
Yea it certainly takes courage.

Their Xiaomi Mi Alpha bezel free phone was just as crazy!
[https://i.imgur.com/CYHISoC.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/CYHISoC.jpg)

------
GICodeWarrior
If you put your webcam behind your video chat window, you can achieve better
eye contact with your remote participants. I wonder how well a webcam can see
through these screens and/or how much of a hole would be required in the
rendered image to avoid obstructing the camera.

~~~
nullc
With the right level of integration the camera could subtract the image that
is in front of it. That would requires having a pretty good model of the point
spread function, perfect synchronization etc.

OLEDs have a fast response... I wonder if it would be possible to put the
camera shutter and the oled out of phase enough to substantially dim it.

Perhaps polarization could be used to get better isolation.

With all the engineering required to do it, it might be much less expensive to
have three or four cameras at the edges of the display, then extract a depth
map and resynthesize an view from the perspective of the centre of the screen.
:)

Plus that would give you bonus features like being able to automatically blur
our or heavily denoise the background. :)

~~~
jstanley
> I wonder if it would be possible to put the camera shutter and the oled out
> of phase enough to substantially dim it.

That's a neat idea. It reminds me of the early fighter planes that fired
bullets between the propeller blades by having the gun driven off the engine,
timed so that the bullet passes through the plane of the propeller while the
blades are not in the way.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronization_gear](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronization_gear)

------
retox
I had an idea recently about creating slight-3D displays by stacking layer of
LCD panels that give some impression of depth when moving your head, this
might make that feasible.

~~~
prutschman
You might find "tensor displays" interesting.

[https://web.media.mit.edu/~gordonw/TensorDisplays/](https://web.media.mit.edu/~gordonw/TensorDisplays/)

~~~
retox
Thank you, it's not what I was thinking of but looks interesting. Seems like
there is some history of multi-layer displays that I wasn't aware of, not that
I took the idea any further than a "wouldn't it be cool if..." scenario.

------
bookofjoe
World's first transparent OLED TV

[https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/11/21363861/xiaomi-oled-
tv-t...](https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/11/21363861/xiaomi-oled-tv-
transparent-mi-lux-china-specs-price-release)

------
ggm
Could you make voxels by stacking them?

------
jpeg_hero
how do they do the black?

~~~
mortenjorck
My first thought was "well of course they don't," but their concept renders do
indeed have opaque black.

I'm guessing these are just technically uninformed renders with no basis in
actually-proposed applications, but it seems at least plausible that one could
combine transparent OLED with a transparent LCD backing (sort of the inversion
of a backlight) to create a variable-transparency screen.

~~~
ACAVJW4H
Pardon my ignorance but wouldn't LCD need polarized light to perform the
darkening? Maybe a transparent pixelated electrochromic display layer might
work

~~~
heftig
The backlight of an LCD isn't itself polarized. A TN LCD display is made of
two orthogonal polarization filters with the liquid crystals in between. In
their relaxed (twisted) state, the crystals rotate the polarization of the
light so that it can pass the second filter. When a voltage is applied, the
crystals straighten and the second filter blocks the light.

------
CSSer
Isn’t a transparent monitor just a window with a HUD? My first thought was
that this could have exciting use-cases in vehicles. However, aside from
nighttime driving, the relatively poor brightness would likely quickly rule it
out. Anyway, for a fun thought experiment, if I were thoroughly reviewing it
for use I’d be most curious about its visual clarity when off (and perhaps
durability, but to a lesser extent). How exactly does one measure contrast
ratios when you have no idea what you’re contrasting against?

------
anon1253
You could put an eInk display behind it, and have sort of a dual mode of
interaction. If both can be constructed flexibly/foldable (with or without a
hinge) I can see some very interesting designs. The ability of eInk to switch
to black, or just display semi-permanent information with amazing readability
and low power usage, while still having portions of the screen be high refresh
rate and full color would be amazing.

------
Slix
Would this be useful for augmented-reality headsets?

~~~
CarbyAu
Assuming the transparency (article says 70-80%) can be improved for clarity
and the pixels small enough then it could be great.

However you'd have to keep in mind that others looking at your face could see
the same image. So don't go running that "X-RAY:make them appear naked!"
app...

~~~
tln
Sunglasses block much more than 30% though. And can have a mirrored surface so
others can't see your eyes, or your creepy app notifications :)

~~~
CarbyAu
Fair point re: sunglasses! Not sure "mirrored" would stop light being
projected back through but may well help disguise it. Maybe a simple black LCD
layer to block the outgoing light might help.

Also, I don't want the creepy Xray app.

But porn has this way of working into society/technology so I don't doubt for
a second some form of that app will exist if it doesn't already.

~~~
tln
I definitely would want smart glasses that don't obviously look like smart
glasses!

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acd
Can transparent oled be used to shade house windows? Ie you output black color
which block sunlight.

~~~
robin_reala
You can already do that with smart glass:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_glass](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_glass)

------
bhouston
Henry Danger, a show on nickelodeon has featured transparent phones and
tablets for years. Seems like they were right that this was the future:

[https://opera.news/ng/en/technology/6a64c11b10e73b1e7f76cd12...](https://opera.news/ng/en/technology/6a64c11b10e73b1e7f76cd12e0802a32?news_entry_id=s59219b5c200620en_ng)

[https://nickalive.blogspot.com/2015/11/sneak-peek-of-new-
hen...](https://nickalive.blogspot.com/2015/11/sneak-peek-of-new-henry-danger-
episode_21.html?m=0)

[http://nickalive.blogspot.com/2015/11/sneak-peek-of-new-
henr...](http://nickalive.blogspot.com/2015/11/sneak-peek-of-new-henry-danger-
episode_21.html)

~~~
refresher
Phones in The Expanse as well.

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maeln
I really hope at some point they will have some pane available by the unit
with normal retailer. I foresee some really cool HUD interface possible with a
RPI :)

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surround
I can’t wait for this to be used in vehicles

[https://imgur.com/F2VHfjs](https://imgur.com/F2VHfjs)

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nmstoker
This sounds like it'll be good for sharper versions of the "magic mirror", a
staple for maker projects.

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agumonkey
Now make 80% reversible OLED so that the screen is powered and semi passive
through ambient light.

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Koshkin
Do they emit light in all directions?

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arthurcolle
Are we finally going to get the transparent displays from sci-fi movies?

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amateescu
> _Transparent OLEDs (TOLEDs)_

This looks like a missed opportunity for TROLEDs :)

