The transparent problems with see-through PCs

What looked like a gimmick to some observers at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2010) in the US may be aviation’s gift, or booby trap, to drivers.

Samsung showed off a 35cms transparent AMOLED notebook. AMOLED means active matrix organic light emitting diode, which in lay terms means two things can happen here. The display can be generated in high definition by running the graphics through individually controlled LEDs, millions of them, many times per second, and it can be transparent.

The concept PC is supposed to be followed by a consumer model later this year.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeNJrim3SU4&NR=1&feature=fvwp[/youtube]

But while many were asking what real use a transparent PC would have, aviation buffs knew the answer immediately. Transparent heads up or HU displays have been around in military aviation for at least 58 years, starting off as fairly crude projections of basic gunnery, speed and attitude data onto a transparent phosphor panel, located in the pilot’s line of sight, and thus reducing the need to look down at instruments on a panel. They are of increasing relevance in airliners, and play important roles in the Airbus A380 and the forthcoming Boeing 787 Dreamliners, and will be integral to the cockpits of the jets that that come after them.

They have also been tried, but without commercial success, in a few automobile marques since at least 1988.

The systems were unreliable and the phosphor screens were degraded by prolonged exposure to sunlight.

The Samsung ‘concept’ PC has gone off , however, like a starting gun in avionics circles. Active matrix displays are fiendishly difficult to adapt to aviation requirements yet are seen as critical to the goal of full synthetic vision of the outside world being generated inside future aircraft that can be navigated even in complete darkness or zero visibility weather conditions with high accuracy based on positional signals from satellites or surface beacons as necessary.

The imminent prospect of the display side of the technology being used and manufactured to the scale and price range of popular consumer products like transparent PCs will pull the avionics goal of all-conditions synthetic vision closer to realisation by reducing the cost of at least part of the solution.

In a more sophisticated form, we will see this type of display used to provide night vision in cars, and perhaps quite dangerously, let you read your incoming emails as floating words and images as you hurtle down the freeway. Into something.