Taiwanese company Polytron has unveiled a transparent smartphone prototype this week and suggests they could be in the shops by the end of 2013.
Taiwanese firm Polytron Technologies has revealed the world's first fully transparent smartphone prototype. As you can see in the pictures above and below, the prototype device is almost fully transparent. The only components visible on the device are the board, chips memory card and camera.
The rest of the device is a piece of glass that sports a small touchscreen (also transparent) located in the center of the device. According to Polytron, its technology may be available by the end of 2013.
South Korean technology giant Samsung, meanwhile, revealed Youm at CES 2013, a flexible and bendable OLED display manufactured for smartphones.
Flexible displays are all well and good, but what about a phone that's completely see-through? That's what Taiwanese company Polytron has done, unveiling a prototype this week.
The handset - which doesn't have a name yet - is developed from glass and only the visible elements are the board, memory card and camera.
Polytron has been working on glass-based technology for a while and has developed "Polyvision Privacy Glass" whereby liquid crystal molecules randomly orientated inside the glass line up when an electric charge is applied. So, while the glass is opaque when the power is off, fire it up and the sheet becomes see-through. This would have uses in a smartphone to cover up non-transparent parts like the SIM card.
The smartphone features a touchscreen interface in the center giving (at the moment) very basic functionality as there's no OS. Despite this, Polytron is planning to market the technology by the end of the year.
How far away this technology is from mainstream uses is impossible to say, but you can have a glance at a hands-on video of the transparent prototype over on the Mobile Geeks website.
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