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back to article Taiwan's Polytron promises see-through phones

Taiwanese manufacturer Polytron has showed a prototype of a transparent smartphone and thinks they could reach the market by year's end. The Taoyuan-based firm, which describes itself as a leading manufacturer of “electronic and optical vision glass”, demoed an almost completely transparent touchscreen device to Mobile Geeks …

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  1. frank ly

    Cynical and suspicious .....

    In the 'Mobile Geeks' linked video, I got the impression that the change in display from '0' to '1' happened when he moved the phone to change the viewing angle, and there were positions in which both '0' and '1' were visible together, which is not what I'd expect from a working display demonstration.

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    1. Mephistro
      Reply Icon

      Re: Cynical and suspicious .....

      Agreed. They also forgot to show how does the transparent camera work. That's something I'd love to see ;-)

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  2. bharq
    Paris Hilton

    need a mirror!

    "an ever-optimistic spokesperson for the firm told Miss Asia"

    Why would she be interested? The most beautiful person in her neighbourhood would, per definition, be herself, so she probably needs something that turns into a mirror instead of getting transparent.

    Paris, because... well, you know!

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  3. Bassey

    lost in translation

    I lost my smartphone whilst out running in the hills behind our house last Thursday night. Some bloke found it, went through the call log, called my sister and got it back to me. I can't help feel that would have been rather less likely with a transparent phone. In fact, I'm struggling to think of a single reason why it would be a good thing.

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    1. Flip
      Reply Icon

      Re: lost in translation

      No screenlock? Yikes! Lucky the guy was honest.

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      1. Bassey
        Reply Icon

        Re: lost in translation

        Thankfully, in the part of the world I live, I would be utterly astonished if the phone had NOT found it's way back into my hands. There has to be an upside to living in the arse-end of nowhere.

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  4. Matthew Taylor
    WTF?

    Just looked like a piece of perspex to me. The '0' and '1' on the screen looked like they'd been etched in somehow - it certainly wasn't turning opaque as described.

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  5. Anonymous Coward
    Big Brother

    Sort of invisibiling away?

    I'd be much more interested in a phone that I could "talk too" when it got misplaced, and it would respond by chirping back to reveal it's presence to me....

    Which is good when you don't have a second phone to call your lost phone with.

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  6. jubtastic1
    Stop

    Why do we want this again?

    Isn't the novelty going to wear thin pretty quickly? I mean we've had the technology to produce transparent books for centuries but I don't see any on the shelves, yet for some reason loads of effort is being thrown into TV's or monitors that allow you to see the wall behind them, or maybe the person on the other side of the desk, their monitor and documents all overlaid onto yours?

    The biggest problem with mobile devices is reflections of the enviroment degrading the view and the solution is to absolutly ensure the enviroment will degrade the view by making it transparent?

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    1. hplasm
      Reply Icon
      Happy

      Re: Why do we want this again?

      a novelty- thin and transparent?

      there's the USP right there... oops here comes Apple...

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  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The Next Big Gimmick

    Say, do you remember a couple years back when the first handsets with 3D displays were launched, and they became such a landslide consumer success that now everybody has one, and all developers write software specially suited for them? I bet see-through handsets will be just like that.

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  8. Katie Saucey
    Joke

    no pics with the write-up?

    ...oh right

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  9. Darkwolf

    Perhaps this will be useful for those who

    walk while talking/texting and dont pay attention.

    Will keep them from walking into fountains...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPW8xmI4w6U

    or bears...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCAntD1-DIk

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