Transparent Electronics

Sounds like just what could be used in an application I've been pondering for a long time: A heads-up dashboard display for my motor vehicle. And in the back window? A way to send messages--politely of course--to motorists behind, like: "Give me some space, please." Or, "Caution! Unsober? driver up ahead." Or, "Please go around." And in the side windows? Well, how about variable sunscreening? Or how about circuitry that could signal, say, a gas pump to switch to your gas octane grade; could set for fill-up or $s-worth (depending on what you instructed by keypad or voice); then could send the bill to your credit card company when you closed the door and restarted the engine to drive off.

I like the way you think. How 'bout this, windows and mirrors in your home that double as media viewers, video com ports, home shopping tools. (Talk to your spouse while your doing the dishes and watching the kids play in the back yard through the window over th sink.

How about this: Suppose that, instead of having a single screen on my LCD monitor (or TV), the display comprised (say) two, three, or more screens sandwiched together in laminar fashion. (The screen levels could be interconnected...but I haven't thought that part through yet.) Each/all of the screens would "display" simultaneously and, because each contained transparent circuitry, all the screens could be made visible when the back llght was active. With just the right "phasing" of the different screen arrays (either or both hardware array phasing and software controlled phasing), each slightly different "actual picture" scanned on the "hardware" arrays would be seen as one picture on the (apparently, but not necessarily actually) top-level (nearest-to-viewer-situated), virtual array. The resulting visible "object" would would no longer be in two dimensions as with conventional displays but, rather, something akin to a bas-relief (as with layering on or carving away of the medium in bas relief sculpture: a stacking of pixels in the screen...if you will) three-dimensional image--and, with programming "trickery", the perspective cues that give the illusion of space/solidness on a conventional screen would be amplified to give the impression of actual three-dimensionality!! Wollah! Mass marketable 3D television--and no need to resort to expensive, power hungry & hazardous lasers and such; or worry about the viewer's presence "interfering" with the image--or the viewer having to spin around in his chair to view all the image :-) . Of course, just as any human being (and some non-human beings) must learn/aquire the ability to perceive an intelligible object on a conventional TV/monitor, the being would also have to learn to make sense of an image (the images) displayed on our 3D screen.

Imagine a 3-D display with a cubic shape of 1 meter by side, then a software that displays a complex molecule inside with some hundred thousands of luminous atoms of about 1 mm diameter or other different sizes rotating softly to show all it intricacies, like a 3-D fractal, a 3-D image that can be observed at once by an audience and to simulate its interactions with other molecules. I guess that nano physics modelling of self-assembling would be very happy to have a display like this. You should contact Steve Jurvetson of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, see at http://www.drapervc.com they are the leaders in venture capital to start nano technology companies, and this project fits exactly at the center of their field.

Down the road Barco has developed a projection screen that is huge (something like 2 meters by nearly 4 meters). The display is an ultra high resolution screen that knocks your socks off.

Then, I was handed a pair of what looked like safety glasses. Looking at the huge display it suddenly became 3-D! Although they did not have a pair to demonstrate, they also have a pair of gloves that you can wear. The gloves allow you to reach out and grab parts of the suspended 3-D image. You could quite literally manipulate a complex protein by hand, spin it, and insert molecules with your gloved fingers. Adding tactile feedback to the gloves is no big deal, too.

If I remember correctly, they built several of these huge systems for GM and Ford to allow full-scale 3-D models of cars to be demonstrated to small audiences.