This is actually closer to what I can see being useful in a next generation Apple Vision Pro system. The see through display would be a huge improvement in the acceptance of the Apple Vision pro as a true AR device able to be used for many applications.
1 Like
Iâve been reading the comments, all focused on it not being good for Virtual Reality and the laptop configuration. Hello folks. Getting a useful transparent screen that actually works is the first step to a really effective augmented reality device. Now project it forward another one or 2 Mooreâs laws hardware cycles to get it smaller with significantly higher resolution. At that point it becomes a potential replacement for all the screens in the Apple Vision pro. Then I can dust off my many applications for a true wearable AR device and get to coding. Probably the only use cases that would entice me to learn how to program for iOS.
That would also solve the weird eye displays of the AVP too.
The optical considerations must balance resolution, luminosity, and transparency. How fine in detail must the features be on the screen? How bright must they be? How much must they stand out versus the background? The physical aspects must be based on materials that can be switched between (highly) transparent to light emitting in some manner or that can be thin enough to go unresolved against the background or can be (fully) transparent yet also carry electrical current.
Remember also that the eye has a set depth of field at specific close-up focal distances.
With all this, especially the considerations on focal point + depth of field for the eye, I imagine a VR headset with a see-through screen will be a bit more than a few Mooreâs law cycles away. And when it would appear, it may not provide anything but a headache to use for the eye fatigue that it generates, specifically that one has to focus both in immediate close up as well as further away distances.
Better that we end up from this technology with larger, semi-transparent panels that allow us to impose patterns over what we should âsee throughâ in a comparable focal point to the screen. I imagine landscapes in the background, where the patterns on the screen provide âhelp meâ information overlayed on the landscape features. Example ⌠Stand at the top of the Prudential tower in Boston in front of a properly transparent screen and watch (from a reasonable distance from the screen) a video presentation that overlays the landscape of Cambridge with historical markers about all the events during the invasion ⌠Look ⌠here is the path that Paul Revere took on his midnight ride.
Otherwise, (sidebar) I recently had a disappointing experience with Lenovo (twice sending me a desktop computer without any SSD, and then sending me through three different departments with different representatives each time over a set of a half dozen phone calls while trying to resolve the mistakes), I am still waiting on a purchase refund after two months, and I absolutely will not be purchasing anything from them at any point in the future.
â
JJW
Any discussion of this hardware should start with the presumption that it will, in fact, never see the light of day. Proceed from there.
It is a âconceptâ - a.k.a., vaporware.
The laptop probably wonât become a commercial product, but the screen technology is real. And that could be the starting point for all kinds of interesting applications.
1 Like
OTOH I personally wear bifocal contacts that have 2 prescriptions. The different powers are basically in little dots over the lens surface and after a period of adjustment (which some people never make it out of) my brain adjusts which of the various inputs to pay attention to based on what I am looking at. I do have to wear additional readers for really close up and a different set for computer distance because they donât make quadfocal contacts. The brain is rather amazing in how to compensate and use whatâs available to make a good world view.
Yes, exactly. Now expand that to connections to a computer so you can pull up additional information based on where and what you are looking at. Literally a computer you look through, the original BrightEyes patent app from 1995.
As a laptop sure. But itâs the screen that is the real breakthrough IMO.
1 Like
Maybe yours. Mine has trouble focusing (figuratively and literally) on more than one thing at once. Perhaps it is an âold guyâ thing or an engineer linear-thinking thing. 
â
JJW
Well Iâve been nearly blind my whole life, had trifocal glasses as a kid, so Iâm used to not seeing well and needing to adapt. It did take me about 2 weeks to handle the bifocal contacts. Iâve tried to have 2 different bifocal prescriptions on each eye and I could not adapt to that combo after a month. We tried both eyes with distance vision (so I can drive) dominant eye for reading and non-dominant for computer but it didnât work. Tried the reverse, non-dominant for reading and dominant for computer and couldnât make that work either so went back to medium long and long in contacts for driving and walking around and my 2 shorter distances as over the top glasses.
Whatâs old is new again. I first saw a transparent-screened laptop around the year 2000. It was an IBM ThinkPad on which the âshellâ of the screen, including backlight, could fold back independently of the LCD screen. The idea was you could lay it on an overhead projector. (Kids, ask your parents.)
Of course much lower resolution and terrible colour, but⌠I saw it with my own eyes and it worked. In both modes.
3 Likes
Of course, the transparency works both ways.
When I saw this caption and photo in the Verge, my first thought was that everyone in a coffee shop could see whatâs on your screen. They wouldnât even have to look over your shoulder to snoop.
agreed which is why I donât think as a laptop it makes much sense. Iâm excited about the display and the interaction between display and computer.
Do you see the display becoming incorporated into goggles or (ideally) glasses, or are you imagining something else?
Ski type goggles first iteration, Weight is ONLY the display and case. Iâm willing to carry the super-computer in my pocket, as in a wire to my iPhone.
Eventually glasses, relatively thick frames, may still require external umbilical to a more powerful computer than you can fit in the glasses themselves.
1 Like