A Taiwan based company is going to revolutionize the looks of mobile phones in the future. The company, Polytron Technologies, claims to have developed a gen-next transparent mobile phone which it says will be in the market by the year end.
The Taiwanese manufacturer has used what it has termed “Polyvision Privacy Glass” to devise this transparent handset. The technology behind it is what Polytron calls “Switchable Glass”, which is in actuality a conductive OLED display. As Polytron puts it, “the liquid crystal molecules line up, the incident light passes through and Polyvision looks clear.”
When the phone is in off mode, the molecules align to form a milky composition, but when switched on they re-align to form text, icons, and other images. Electric current is carried through transparent wires.
This new technology will become reality by the end of this year. “It will happen near the end of 2013. Trust me,” said Polytron general manager Sam Yu.
The device still contains some parts that are not transparent, including a SD card and SIM card. The microphone, camera, and batteries would be visible and there will be an opaque cover to hide them. This would probably be positioned at the bottom end of the device. The company, according to Yu, will develop a smaller lithium ion battery that would be much less noticeable.The company intends to use microscopic wires that will be embedded right in to the glass. When complete, the phone will have a dual-sided multi-touch display in front and back. There is no word on the software and operating system on the prototype phone.
It remains to be seen whether the phone’s transparency by itself will attract buyers, as the prototype does not offer significantly different functions than most smartphones. “Display quality is paramount. If the display quality is not up to par with the best of today’s AMOLED and LCD screens, a phone using it won’t sell even for its novelty value,” said Greengart, research director at Current Analysis.
Meanwhile, there are also apprehensions about the usability of the handset under sunlight and its brightness. The commercial viability of the phone can only be predicted after it goes into production.
