Samsung showed off its transparent display technology at last week's Consumer Electronics Show, demonstrating its potential use as replacement for actual windows at people's homes. The CES 2012 innovation award winner Samsung Smart Window is essentially a 46-inch LCD, only that it is completely see-through and can overlay touch controlled widgets as well as a browser and media.
Samsung also showed a series of applications running in its prototype device, including weather forecasts, flight information, Twitter feeds, view recipes, and a slick set of digital blinds that lets you control the amount of light coming in. You can also watch live TV or local media on this screen and even work with office productivity applications – though it hardly seems the best fit for this purpose.
The Samsung Smart Window runs on ambient lighting so the LCD is powered by the sunlight outside. Privacy shouldn't be a problem as the display reportedly acts as a two-way mirror – you can see out but not the other way around. Also, during the night time when there's no light shining through the window powering the device, you can switch to night mode and use an edge-lit backlight instead.
We should note that this is still a concept device but apparently Samsung might start producing these displays by the end of 2012. Unfortunately, there's no information on expected pricing. Samsung also said that the technology could be scaled down for use in military visors and heads up displays.