comScore
Uncategorized Friday, January 13th 2012 at 3:31 pm

Samsung Smart Window is Like a Giant Transparent iPad

By ( ) Comments

Whenever you’re cruising through CES announcements and demos, you’re always looking for that one thing that ignites that spark of excitement in your chest, lights up your eyes, and makes you realize that we’re living in the future. Well, the Samsung Smart Window will deliver. The Samsung Smart Window is a window, but it’s a display. It’s a giant transparent touchscreen you can use as a window. It’s a see-through, window iPad. It’s amazing.

It only takes a few features to drive home how crazy this technology is. For instance, it comes with a blinds app. If you activate it, you can slowly open and close the digital blinds and affect the amount of actual light that comes in. It’s also a one-way mirror, meaning that you don’t have to be afraid of passersby seeing you or what’s on your screen; they’ll only see themselves. As if all that wasn’t enough, because the Samsung Smart Window doesn’t need backlight units (it uses natural light for that), it uses about 1/10th of the electricity that a standard LCD display its size would use. And in the dark, it has transparent backlight units you can use at the cost of a little more power, so you’re always covered.

Now, this is doubtlessly awesome, but there are a few questions to be raised about its application, most of which lead back to its presumably high price tag. First off, if you use this as a window, it’s going to be exposed to the outside world. Remember having to do a week’s worth of chores to pay back the cost of a broken window after a wild foul ball? Imagine years of indentured servitude ahead.

Secondly, how much use are you really going to get out of staring out the window and using it as a touch screen? Chances are you already have more portable touchscreen devices than you could possibly need or want. On top of that, reaching up to use a vertical touchscreen could be awkward and tiring if you do use it a lot. Tom Cruise reported being sore after filming the UI sequences in Minority Report, so you might get sore living them, and probably pay a pretty penny for it too.

All that aside, how amazing is this? A huge, transparent, one-way mirror touchscreen and it’s going into mass production in just a few months. We are living in the future. And while you may not want to actually shell out for one, it’s a least a great piece of tech to lust after.

(via WebProNews)

More CES goodies

Filed Under | • • •
  • Emini

    perfect, until hurricane/tornado hits

  • Dabungun

    Unless you live in an area where those aren’t a problem.

  • DDD:

    I think it’s great for offices; where I work we use windows as marker boards

  • Facebook

    I live in Canada and we have a lot of cold weather. Ever see those frosted windows in the winter. Don’t image it will work out up here.

  • Fartface

    These comments are aweful, its a fucking interactive window for christ sake… “what about hurricanes… Its coooooooold.” holy wet blanket!!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jack-N-Fran-Farrell/100002337622505 Jack N Fran Farrell

    Try it on the inner pane of the triple pane windows that you need for energy efficiency!

  • DaAfMan

    Apparently nobody has ever heard of double pane windows, you know, the ones that are filled with a special gas to provide insulation? The solution to these screens being broken or covered in ice is as simple as a double pane window, the outside pane being a high rigidity plexiglass and the inside pane being the screen. Ice doesn’t build on plexiglass as well as it does regular glass and can take the force of a hammer without much damage. Problem solved. While being even more energy efficient nonetheless.

    Even without that factor, plenty of businesses have a managers-office/employees-only-area with a window looking into the consumer section of the store. The standard version of this would be a great way to watch whats going on in the consumer section while still being able to record it.

    Or perhaps in police interrogation rooms. The criminal history of the person could then be loaded on the screen prior to the interrogation to provide a more in depth observation of the accused, rather than having to take your eyes off of them and allow them to try something funny.

    Smaller versions of the fully transparent screens could be used in cameras to provide a more enjoyable photo taking experience, potentially similar to actually grabbing the image out of your vision. I personally would love to see a camera like this.

    Before I write an entire novel on this, I’ll make a long story short: There are plenty of practical means as to how this can be implemented. And it is an amazing technological breakthrough seeing as the closest we got to a transparent screen previously was a roughly 40% transparent screen. Meaning it was still mostly opaque.

  • Facepalm

    Are you people really this dumb?

    Hello? Just because it’s called a “window” doesn’t mean it’s necessarily
    going to be used as a traditional window that you use to view the
    outside world.

    It could be an interactive whiteboard, an interior window, a glass coffee table, etc etc etc. Whatever you want.

    Instead of coming off as the “clever” people you think you are by
    raising weather objections or broken window scenarios, you just come off
    as completely ignorant and myopic.

  • cdub

    “Are you people really this dumb?”   Trust me they are that DUMB!

  • Gunvalk

    Yeah it’s not meant to be used as a window… That’s why it’s called one and they have model buildings and streets behind it…

  • Facepalm

    Please learn how to read. I didn’t say it’s not meant to be used as a window. I said its use as a traditional window is not necessarily the only realization of this technology. Bringing up inane issues like bad weather and baseballs going through windows is, well, inane.

    Why? Because even if it is used as a window, you think engineers are dumb like you that they’ll make it out of normal breakable glass? What do you think the best smartphones use as “glass” these days?

    You really do fall into the category of dumb people I was talking about.

  • Nobody

    How often have your windows been broken due to the weather…?

  • Medinger

    I like them.  Just wondering if they have released the cost of them as of yet.  They could be great in so many applications. 

  • Joe

    The Glass coffee table idea is brilliant, that’s what i call thinking outside of the box. and trust me people really are that dumb!

  • Gunvalksuckscock

    The operative word in Facepalm’s sentence was “necessarily,” but you’re obviously someone who sees the words they want to reinforce your lack-of-point.

  • http://twitter.com/wexlerj Jonathan Wexler

    I think this thread maybe misses the implications a bit. While in the first, second, third generation, some of the above criticism may be relevant, don’t forget about how fast technology moves these days.

    It won’t be long before whole 100 story office buildings are made of the stuff, and prices come down so this is so ubiquitous as to be free. I think we have been stuck the last couple of years in a deluge of relatively inaccessible data – which is nonetheless accumulating at breakneck speed. What happens when we can visualize this data anywhere and everywhere.

    We will be living inside of the Internet, truly, shattered glass notwithstanding.

  • Numinak

    I can see this being used to make the Mirror in the Bathroom Interactive, like they show in many movies/commericals. Have the news and other important info going while you shave and primp for the morning!

  • Egore

    neat, could be used as a TV in rooms where windows cause a issue for layout.

  • really

    It’s just a product name. So what, you can assume that a Samsung Galaxy has to do with the galaxy somehow?

  • NextBox 360

    lol, and it’s also solar powered. No, not as a window at all.

  • Optimist

    Gunvalk, I’m pretty positive that in the video he says it can be used for other things besides a window and even if it can’t I think it goes over the window not replacing it.

  • Joe

    If people want to use it as a window then they can, if a whiteboard is in your future that’s cool, but for me the coffee table with mini me’s running around is out of the question.  LOL

  • Jonjuda

    Oh so you mean like a bigger ipad then. Gotcha. This technology has existed for years smarty pants. They implement into a window making usage awkward and cumbersome and all of a sudden its the best product at an already underwhelming CES. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Vivlian-Wozz/100003324676254 Vivlian Wozz

    I am a 27 years old doctor,mature and beautiful. and now i am seeking a good man who can give me real love, so i got a sername Andromeda2002 on  Agedate.СòM, a nice and free place for younger women and older men,or older women and younger men, to interact with each other.Maybe you wanna check out or tell your friends.
     

  • Jason Ramirez

    The most ignorant thing on here is them calling it an iPad. Samsung doesn’t do iPad, it does better, it does Android!

    You would think a site that considers itself to be a site for “geeks” would do better at reporting technological advances correctly.

    Instead of iPad, they should be saying Tablet.

  • What an idiot

     Dude, it’s ‘transparent’. That means you can fucking see through it. What else would you use it for?

  • Anonymous

    So wait. Microsoft Windows isn’t a collection of really small and easily penetrated openings to the outside environment? I give up! English is so hard.

  • GU

    Windows

  • Lordgintao

    tony stark uses them so they must be good

  • gabagaba7767

    Yes, it is. Which is why there are model buildings and streets behind it. Because I’m sure they arent meant to represent model buildings in someones home. Plus why would you want a transparent screen, brand new technology, just to set your crap on… Get a projected furiated screen then. Lol. It doesn’t have to be used as a window, but its meant to be as the title describes. 

  • Bhaalgorn99

    and your smart phone should only be used as a phone right?

  • Nick

    I doubt people would actually use it as a window on an outer wall. Its probably more for indoor walls so you could use it in the wall that connects your kitchen to your dining room, for example. Really cool, and could be useful depending on where you put it… :)

  • Thowell6

    If it is not used as a window, how will it be solar powered? You will be spending just as much on the bill and for the mostly likely ridiculous price.

  • Willrawls

    Uh people…..remember Tony Stark Ironman….the windows in his house were smart windows integrated with voice control, timers, etc. This can be a feasible addition to ome homes. All in all still a big toy…lol

  • 111

    Is this Android ?

  • Lotrofan20

    LOL!!! BTW, it looks like Corning Inc. has some catching up to do. This tech would be perfect for interior walls.

  • Abzabidhar

    go kill urself u worthless piece of sh!t you should just blow urself up u sad lowlife

  • Anonymous

    I feel your pain here. You are wasting your time. It’s Darwin….they are never going to get it.