Clear glass phones have been a mainstay of science fiction movies for the last half-decade, from Real Steel to Looper, but Hollywood’s dream may be closer than you think. Polytron, a global systems integration firm based in Duluth, GA, has unveiled (via Mobile Geeks) a mostly transparent cell phone. We say mostly transparent because, in the released photos, we could still see a small battery, circuit board, and a memory card. But aside from that, the entire phone is completely transparent.
The prototype is not fully functional yet, but it’s believed that such devices could be ready for the retail market as soon as the year’s end. Of course, with such a novel (and yes, completely unnecessary) concept, there are questions that arise about the functionality. Will video quality on the phone, which has increasingly been getting better and better, begin to suffer? Will the backside of the phone reveal what the user is seeing, resulting in an issue of privacy?
This isn’t the first time the company has come up with innovative uses of glass. While they traditionally have employed glass for use in construction projects, the company has also revealed a nearly transparent USB memory stick, which it says will be available for sale later this year.
While this clear concept is certainly a cool innovation, we’re not sure just how well-received it will be by the general public. And, more importantly, how much devices like this will cost and what they’ll be capable of. (We’re guessing they won’t be on the affordable end of the scale.)
Polytron is late to the party on this one… Tony Stark has been using a clear smartphone (or some sort of PDA) since the first scene of Iron Man 2! :-p
True, but this isn’t necessarily a movie prop! :)
Coming up with new ways to lose your phone…
This kind of phone is definitively going to need a remote, so we can hit it and have it sound an alarm and light up in red and blue colors. At least that way we won’t lose it, but i got a feeling that lots of people will be sitting, standing, sleeping, or even putting their drinks on top of it at the bar :P
Ok, crazy but I really want to see it in action, with a dial pad up or something.
It is pretty cool! Can you hook me up with one boss? Thanks! =)
Umm buy your own. Kidding! :P
This will be great for those people who text and walk, holding the phones up so they cant see in front of them. They won’t walk blindly into the streets anymore
I sense Tunnel Vision Syndrome incoming.
Ooooh, remember the smart phones from Real Steel?
Where are the numbers?
Wait…they just showed you a CLEAR CELLPHONE. 1st response? “A little big, but….” …CLASSIC.
Wonder what type cases it’ll have, if any at all. Price tag will probably be insane.
Where’s the battery, how would you charge it?
That’s a good point, I would think it’s hard to make the battery see through. Probably like the iPhone in the sense that you can’t change the battery.
If I had this, I wouldn’t have a case. Defeats the purpose of it being clear.
The battery in that demo unit consists of the two button cells, though I’m sure they would use a different form factor in a production unit. Rechargeable lithium batteries can be manufactured into virtually any shape, so they could have a narrow battery extend along one of the device’s edges. They could also use an opaque rim around the edges, or perhaps just along the bottom edge, that could conceal all the visible electronics.
One thing that must be pointed out though, is that there’s no way this will be a proper “smartphone” if they intend on keeping the whole device anywhere near as transparent as the demo unit shown here. A modern smartphone is packed full of electronics, and current technology just isn’t to the point where those chipsets could be miniaturized enough so that so few internals would be visible. Plus, a device capable of watching videos, browsing the web, or anything advanced like that would require a fairly large battery to power it for any usable length of time. The device as shown would need to be an extremely basic phone with a touchscreen and little else to manage so few visible components. I suspect this “prototype” itself isn’t even a working phone, but rather a simple screen that can only display a fixed image. To make a smartphone out of this, a substantial portion, at the very least covering the entire area below the screen, would need to be completely filled with electronics.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing about having an opaque bottom section of the phone (covering the internals) and simply let the display be transparent.