Can you imagine having a mobile with which you can see through it as if it were transparent? Anyone would think that this is physically impossible or many years away, but with a few tricks we may be very close to seeing them. Why are we so sure? Because Samsung could launch a mobile slider with a transparent screen very soon. You want to know more?
Samsung’s patent speaks of a mobile phone with a transparent auxiliary screen
Currently, when we talk about transparent mobiles, the most we can do is put a wallpaper that emulates this effect. For the rest, it is to think of magical things like the invisibility cloak of Harry Potter, but it seems that Samsung has an ace up its sleeve to bring them to the real world.
The South Korean company registered a patent with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) detailing that it could be developing smartphones with transparent sliding screens . In the attached images, Samsung left some clues about what the design and characteristics of this mobile could be like. The key points are the following:
- The screen slides up to expose a physical keyboard for more comfortable typing. Nothing new, because slider phones are older than smartphones themselves.
- The front camera is not visible anywhere , which could be a first glimpse of Samsung’s trick to have a “transparent” screen.
- When sliding the mobile, a second screen is revealed on the back that is announced as “transparent” in the patent itself.
- The latest, a rear camera module that could house 3 or 4 sensors.
So far so good, but we still don’t know Samsung’s trick about its supposed transparent screen. The solution to use is not entirely clear , but we can theorize about it.
Is it really a transparent screen? The mobile patented by Samsung would have a trick
After seeing the sketches patented by Samsung, the term “transparent screen” may sound like our clickbait, but the company itself uses it. In the Samsung patent it details that there is a “transparent area of the screen and an opaque area” .
This is not surprising, as companies tend to patent new technologies using very generic terms . The reason? Wrap as much as possible around that description, so other companies don’t easily copy them or have to pay royalties for similar technologies. Knowing that, let’s take a look at what this panel could actually be.
Right off the bat, the images lead one to think that Samsung would only use an auxiliary screen that will be activated by sliding the mobile. Then, this would work as a viewfinder for the rear cameras to take selfies , which would explain the lack of a front camera.
However, there is nothing “transparent” about that, so another technology comes into play: electrochromic glass . This was used in the OnePlus Concept One to hide its rear cameras and basically consists of a type of glass that becomes transparent, translucent or opaque depending on the electrical pulses it receives.
Thus, Samsung could be using this technology on the front screen to hide the camera so that no one knows it is there, while everything it records is displayed on the auxiliary screen. It is not a very “transparent” concept to say, but that could do the trick. We will see what it is in due time.
Source | Android Headline
