When will we see a transparent
smartphone? It's a question that's been
circulating for years, thanks to films like
Minority Report and Iron Man 2 that
sparked dreams of a diaphanous mobile
future, and more than a decade later, it's one that's still without an answer. Sony
Ericsson's Xperia Pureness fell flat when it
hit the market in 2009, and subsequent concept designs never came to fruition, leaving only a trail of dashed hopes and
semi-transparent feature phones in their wake. Now, Taiwan-based Polytron Technologies
is trying to revive the dream, with a
transparent multi-touch display that it's
begun marketing to OEMs. As Mobile Geeks reports, the key to Polytron's prototype is its so-called Switchable Glass technology —
a conductive OLED that uses liquid crystal
molecules to display images. When the
phone is powered off, these molecules form
a white cloudy composition, but once
activated with electric current (flowing through transparent wires), they realign to
form text, icons, or other imagery. ""It will happen near the end of 2013. Trust
me."" In its current form, the device still isn't
totally transparent. Most glaring is the SD
card, inserted on the bottom left side of the
phone, alongside the SIM card. The
microphone, camera, and batteries are also
visible, though Polytron plans to hide these with a darker glass cover once it goes to
production. In its finished state, the phone
would feature dual-sided multi-touch
displays (front and back), raising new
possibilities for OS and UI design. At this point, however, the display is still
very much in development. The prototype
features no software or operating system,
which makes it difficult to visualize in
practice. In an interview with The Verge,
Polytron general manager Sam Yu acknowledged that the company is still
working on integrating a smaller, less
conspicuous lithium-ion battery.
Transparent lithium ion technology has
been in development for some time now, but for the moment, Yu's prototype runs on
two small (and very visible) batteries. There's also no clear indication that it will
actually come to production anytime soon,
but Yu seems confident about its chances.
"It will happen near the end of 2013," Yu told Macworld last week. "Trust me." He later told us that Polytron is already in
serious discussions with "major smartphone
makers" across the US, Europe, Japan, and
South Korea. The looming question, though, is whether or
not the market even wants a translucent
device. Companies like Samsung, LG, and others have been touting larger transparent displays for years now, but aside from the occasional Far East prototype, there hasn't been as concerted an effort around smaller,
more Tony Stark-friendly form factors. A major hurdle in adapting the technology
to smaller screens stems from physical
constraints. At one end of the spectrum is
Tokyoflash, which recently used a
transparent LCD in its Kisai Spider wristwatch, but faced difficulties in integrating hardware components within
such a small frame. "The challenge of using
a transparent display in a wristwatch, and I
suppose other wearable technology, is that
you need to store the batteries somewhere
else (usually they are stored behind the LCD panel)," Tokyoflash marketing manager Paul
Cooper said in an e-mail, adding that
transparent display technology may offer
more obvious benefits for advertisers or as
interactive window displays
What do you guys think?

[/quote]

where is the engine?

heheheh0, f0ne dey get engine ?
.
L0lz..it d0esnt luk c0oL

Chaiii

Joe50: where is the engine?

That is a very early prototype. The cpu, gpu and main components are un that golden strip of wires @ d bottom. The screen is quite small though.

Francheezy: heheheh0, f0ne dey get engine ?
.
L0lz..it d0esnt luk c0oL

ikr?
the makers must've felt compelled to show the market something. Its just a teaser. The first ever TV was as big as my room so the first glass fone still has room for improvement.

0oh yeah

Hmmm na wa oh, this 2013 eh. well i am eagerly anticipating the phones coming sha,lets see what it will look like running android jellybean