'Invisible Glass' Solves Screen Reflection Problems 216
An anonymous reader writes "The days of dealing with very reflective glass panels may soon be behind us. Nippon Electric Glass has used the FPD International 2011 conference in Japan this week to show off its new 'invisible glass' panel. What NEG has done is added anti-reflection films to both the front and back of the glass that are only nanometers thick. Look at a typical sheet of glass and you will see about 8% of the light reflected off of it. With NEG's anti-reflection film in place, that is reduced to just 0.5%."
But Apple (Score:5, Funny)
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"Occup..." -BOING/CRASH!-
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You silly, this is not for Apple devices. This is for banks' doors.
So the banks can blame the special glass when their employees fail to be visible in reflections?
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Antiglare is no match for an actual matte display, which are available on some laptops (HP probooks for example).
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Some inexpensive laptops, too... my $400 Dell Vostro V130, for example, has a really good 13" matte screen on it.
And you bring up my first reaction to reading this article.... "great, until it gets covered in fingerprints and dust". I definitely prefer a matte screen since I started working in an area where there's sunlight. :)
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Matte displays will reflect more ambient light, and thus have worse contrast. An anti-reflective screen will definitely have better contrast than a matte screen.
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Pretty well every other laptop maker does the same! At least I can get a MBP with an anti-glare screen. Some makers don't even offer that choice but hey, don't let the facts stop your anti apple ranting.
I don't know why I'm bothering to reply to a AC, but in fact my primary computer was, until recently, a 17" Macbook Pro with the extra-cost matte screen. So, yes, I am quite aware of Apple's policy about anti-glare screens. It's worth noting that only the 15" and 17" Macbook Pro laptops have that option. If you want an iMac or a 13" laptop, or an external display, you are forced to get the pro-glare screens.
I would never get an iMac, just because of the screen. However, I've found that the screen on my
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There goes my karma
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It used to be that a matte screen was the *default*. Then Apple started making everything with a glossy screen and sold it as a "feature". In the showroom, glossy screens look better, so everybody started selling glossy screens to look sexy. Now, matte is an upgrade -- if it's even available *at all*.
Thanks Apple!
--Jeremy
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Although, Apple is the only manufacturer that promote highly reflective glossy screen as a feature. That joke at Apple expense was funny and deserved.
Most of the laptop manufacturers advertise it as a feature, but they use their particular trademark names like TruBrite or Color Shine, Ironically, Apples trademark name is "Glossy Display". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossy_Display_Branding [wikipedia.org] (Is the Ahtec brand really this feature calling it "Glare"? Seems appropriate if true.)
The glossy screens sell well as the colors do look sharper in the store, but I think most people end up hating the glare and just think that laptops should not be used outdoors
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(cite [cnet.com])
Granted, that's an expensive set, but cheaper LCDs are so much better than they used to be.
Cool, how durable is it? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Then just put a piece of glass over the coating
oh, wait....
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But what if I want it on my eyeglasses?
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Durability is a HUGE issue. Anyone that wears glasses knows that when you get the anti-glare coating, that means the glasses are impossible to clean and will scratch if you even fart too close to them.
If they do this and it can withstand 10 psi of pressure on a 000 steel wool wad for 500 strokes witout any damage, I am suddenly very interested.
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It's not just durability. Anti-reflection coatings also fail when someone touches the display and leaves behind a fingerprint: the oils in the fingerprint are thick enough to make it reflective again, so they really show up.
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Yes, but I can think of damn many "no touch" surfaces like monitors, TVs, glasses, picture frames, glass doors, windows and so on that would benefit. It's not like everything has to be touch even though it's the new megahype.
Bad idea for glass doors (Score:2)
People would be more likely to fail to see a glass door if it has anti-reflective film, resulting in them walking face-first into it and hurting themselves and possibly also damaging the door.
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People would be more likely to fail to see a glass door if it has anti-reflective film, resulting in them walking face-first into it and hurting themselves and possibly also damaging the door.
Not to mention rendering it reflective do to the smudging from the person's face.
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So long as it's Justin Beiber [youtube.com] doing the failing, there shouldn't be a problem. He's too small to damage the door.
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Decals or other decorations can mitigate this, without falling back on turning the door into a mirror...
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yeah for a retail store eye level is where the Branding Stripe(R) goes (or the POP signage for your current promo)
depending on your store you may also want a BS at Knee level to catch ADA folks or your younger customers
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People do touch their monitors. Quite a lot. You can tell by the fingerprints.
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One of my friends is a monitor toucher. I called him out on it one day and he claimed he didn't do it. I stopped him in the act and pointed it out. He apparently never realized he did it. I got so sick of cleaning the screen of my laptop I keep by the couch.
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This is very old hat - quarter wave plates are hardly news. You can't even make a good zoom lens without it. I'm guessing what's new is the durability of the film, so that you can use it in more expsed places than the inside of a lens array.
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imokaywiththis.jpg
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That's like saying that since you started working somewhere with automatic doors you keep walking into your houses door instead of using the f#@%ing doorknob.
Re:Cool, how durable is it? (Score:5, Funny)
I have anti-glare coating on my glasses and I have none of the problems you describe. My glasses aren't scratch anywhere noticeable, and cleaning it with a lint-free cloth is ridiculously simple.
Hopefully your glasses aren't as old as your UID; this may explain the problem otherwise as I change mine rather regularly.
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My anecdote: I also have an anti-glare coating on my glasses. After less than a year I started noticing what looked like chemical etching on my lenses. I work with chemicals but I never wear my glasses anywhere but at home (where I don't work with chemicals). I take them to the eye doctor to check it out. It was the coating coming off the lenses. So the thing I paid extra for to prevent me from not being able to see through my glasses made me not be able to see through my glasses. (and they wanted to charge
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That would be a IUD.
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Maybe's he military - like Uterine, Intra, Device ???
Or just an old Forth programmer.
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Device, Uterine, Intra.
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One each.
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Although, I suppose the advice is still valid... it probably is a good idea to change your IUD every once in a while also. I would assume. Having a T-shaped piece of plastic shoved up your bajango is not one of my areas of expertise. I will defer to the Apple users on this topic. (... and cue the flame war... it was a joke, people).
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Dyslexics UNTIE!
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If they do this and it can withstand 10 psi of pressure on a 000 steel wool wad for 500 strokes witout any damage, I am suddenly very interested.
I'm trying to think of any time I've ever used steel wool on an electronic gizmo's glass...
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Can glass survive that?
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One CRT I did manage to scratch with my fingernail, though.
Speaking of CRTs, I had problems with mine that looked a bit like scratches [tomshardware.co.uk] but ultimately couldn't have been (solely) due to that because they (a) got worse over time and (b) went under the bezel.
To be honest, it was very strange. (I no longer use that monitor, though I still have it).
Does anyone have a clue what might have caused this? See the linked thread. ("Flaavu" is my account there, BTW).
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Yep, that's what I was thinking of as well. Plus I'm sure there are other anti-reflection treatments, maybe 0.5% is a new record but it's not like 8% was the best we could do before.
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I thnik 0.5% is normal for a quarter wave plate (IIRC, circularly polarized light still has the normal 4% reflected off each boundary, though that physics class was some time ago).
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If it's anything like the anti-glare coating on my glasses it will be very sturdy indeed. Of course that coating adds a pretty good chunk of change to the cost of the lenses, but it works like a charm and stands up to repeated cleaning with rubbing alcohol.
Re:Cool, how durable is it? (Score:4, Funny)
but will it be destroyed the first time you have to wipe off dust/fingerprints/etc
No problem! Just put a thin coating of glass over it to protect it!
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I expect it would hold up as well as your typical camera lens/filter coating; unless you really abuse it or use harsh chemicals, it will hold up well.
Phones/tablets (Score:3)
Oh, I can't wait for this to show up on phones and tablets! It is probably my #1 complaint about modern capacitive touchscreens. For example, I could use my Xoom as a mirror, before applying an anti-glare film on it. And films are hard to apply, sometimes not pretty, and sometimes reduce the touch sensitivity.
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-GiH
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You didn't catch the "on the way" part did you? Learn2Read
iPhone (Score:2)
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The birds are going to be angry (Score:2)
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I thought they collided into pigs and blocks.
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I read that birds have been seen flying into trees and hillsides. There is a reason we have the term "bird brained", birds are not smart and will fly into all kinds of things. Solid things. Things that are plainly visible. We'll see them run into windows because the window is transparent enough that a person can see the bird. Also, the glass does not deaden the sound as much as a solid wall meaning if we didn't see it then we'll hear it.
Long ago when I lived on a dairy farm I'd see birds fly into the s
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Uh, yeah, the GP said "window" not "wind" (I see how you could get those two mixed up). I do, however, agree with you. I'm not saying we should get rid of coal-fired plants, but we should also have wind turbines, solar panels, and nuclear power as well. Energy diversity is the key to all of this.
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I don't think anybody should get out of high school without understanding density, mass, and gravity! Somehow people fail to grasp the concept of 1 lb of tiny coal turning into a HUGE volume of gas (let alone the chemistry involved that actually cause it to gain weight.) We have unlimited air is the belief; thinking its like invisible land or something; completely ignoring its density.
How would a firm grasp of density, mass, and gravity help understand how burning a pound of coal results in around 3 pounds of CO2? Does burning it make gravity around the dense mass of coal more intense?
Knowing basic high school chemistry would help (Score:4, Informative)
Coal is mostly carbon. Carbon weighs about 12 g/mol *.
To burn, coal requires oxygen. Oxygen is found in the air. Oxygen has an atomic weight of about 16 g/mol and is found in the form of O2, which weighs twice as much, 32 g/mol.
1 mol C + 1 mol O2 => 1 mol CO2 *
CO2 weighs about 44 g/mol, or about 3.66 times the weight of carbon.
How could burning 1 pound of coal result in 3 pounds of CO2? Well, apparently the coal was only about 82% pure carbon.
* The mole, abbreviated "mol", is just a number of atoms or molecules. A very large number. It's a constant. As a matter of fact, it's exactly defined to be the number of atoms of C-12 in 12 grams of pure carbon-12 [wikipedia.org]. So that equation is perfectly balanced; there are equal numbers of molecules of C and O on both sides.
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*sigh* and then I said molecules when I meant atoms. Silly me. There are the same number of atoms on both sides of the balanced equation.
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Just because there is a bigger threat, doesn't mean all other threats should be ignored.
And wind isn't very efficient, or a solution. It's a nice local add.
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In the Slashdot tradition, I am going to comprehensively your assertion with my single unsupported anecdote. XD
Late December. A little dark-eyed_junco [allaboutbirds.org] darts out of a leafless poplar tree across the street flies at full speed into our front window.
It was trying to get into our Christmas tree, a nice full (artificial, but very fluffy) tree with lots of potential cover, if only it weren't behind a plate of glass.
It lay there stunned until the thing it was fleeing caught up to it: a red-tailed hawk swooped down
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I am going to comprehensively your assertion
The red-tail hawk also swooped down and snatched up the word missing in the first line. Poor little wordie.
"comprehensively demolish." I wanted to put that in so the sentence has some ultimate hope of making sense.
Can I get them in gloss finish ? (Score:4, Funny)
After all - existing screens aren't that shiny until they put TruBright(TM) or Ultrabright(TM) or AmazaView(TM) or BlindUView(TM) coating of crap on them.
No one will buy this (Score:5, Funny)
I am typing this from a 13" glossy Macbook Pro, and I think there's a misunderstanding about why people buy glossy screens. The glossy screen is the perfect Apple screen because I can simultaneously see the two most important things in the world: the blog I'm reading, and myself. Always myself.
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Also the reason for the camera that faces you, when your holding the iPhone properly. Really FaceTime... no one ever uses that. It is made so you can admire yourself actually being on the screen of an iPhone. Its the closest you ever get to iHeaven.
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(Too Soon?)
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Also the blog you're reading is your own blog.
Evolution of screens converges to a perfect mirror (Score:5, Funny)
We all know that the perfect monitor screen resembles (or should resemble) a highly polished mirror, and that the viewing of films, games, software or the web is a secondary effect that some people find occasionally useful.
So with that in mind, how is this technology a step forwards again?
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Is this a troll? I'm confused. It's a step forward because there's less glare, and no one wants glare in windows.
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Oh you're right, I don't buy glossy so it kinda went over my head.
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In fact, I'm pretty sure that no one outside of your bizarre fever dream knows that.
Bingo. Yes I (lucid) dream about this most nights and await the day when monitor manufacturers wake up to my reality. For now, I've resorted to buying tailor-made mirrors to cover the TV and 2 monitors we have in this house. Friends remark at how wonderfully new and high-tech they look all the time, and I'm inclined to agree. That's what it's all about.
But I would do anything to have them pre-installed like this to begin with.
We've been visited by the future... (Score:4, Funny)
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Maybe someday we'll have digital cameras that aren't the size of a book!
another fine victory (Score:2, Funny)
Why do we need protection screens at all? (Score:2)
Why do we need protection screens at all? Can't they make the actual screens hardy enough to survive relatively rough usage?
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no.
Does this become the outermost layer of a display? (Score:2)
The reason I ask is - is this regular, breakable glass, or can you put some Gorilla Glass on top of it? And if you did, would it then become reflective again? Can this new extra-transparent glass be made extra-hard like Gorilla Glass?
I think even if it can't, and if you can't put Gorilla Glass on top of it without losing your extra-transparency, I'd still prefer this on my cellphone/tablet. At least that's not a worry on monitors.
What is new here? (Score:2)
Telescope optics (Score:2)
Is there any idea as to the cost of
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Very similar, although I think the key is that they've refined to process to get the cost down. Those high-end coated optics are very expensive and easily scratched.
PETA alert!! (Score:2)
When people start using this stuff for windows in buildings, I wonder how the bird population will be affected....
And if I'm wondering that now, you know PETA will jump on it later. Hmmmm
-imagines typical naughty imagery they use somehow involving invisible glass this time-
This might be worth it after all. Kill the birds!!
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Birds will be better off. They won't see the reflections, thinking there's trees behind the glass. They'll see what's actually behind the glass. Now, if you put a bunch of trees on the other side of the windows...
Think of the Dogs (Score:2)
And dogs everywhere cringe at this announcement. I know that my dog will hate me if this ever makes it to consumer windows.
News? (Score:5, Informative)
This isn't news, this is an advertisement.
1. AR (anti-reflection) coatings [wikipedia.org] have been available on photographic lenses for decades. Even the ultra tiny lenses in your iPhone/Blackberry/Android phone have AR coating. AR coatings are *always* nanometers thick, by their very nature.
2. AR coatings have been available on eyeglass lenses for nearly as long. Most people these days get some sort of AR coating on their lenses.
3. AR coatings have been available on framing glass to protect valuable paintings, photographs, and other items in picture frames for the same scale of time. Drop by your local framing / art supply store and check out what's usually called museum glass.
4. AR coatings were used on nearly every CRT by the time sales started to plummet in favor of the LCD. I use a couple of them in my lab to this day.
5. AR coatings are already available on some laptop screens (eg, by Sony and Samsung, no doubt among others).
So, news about a new technology ("Solves Screen Reflection Problems")? No. Product announcement? Yes.
Re:News? (Score:5, Informative)
I have a painting with AR glass. It's a big improvement over regular glass, but it's way, way more reflective than the glass seen in the photo.
Also note from the WP article you cited:
It is possible to obtain reflectivities as low as 0.1% at a single wavelength. Coatings that give very low reflectivity over a broad band can also be made, although these are complex and relatively expensive.
TFA claims broadband 0.5% reflectivity.
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Indeed, I have a Samsung with AR.
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1) Everything is nano-meters thick. The quest is, how many. Is this less then the current technology?
The breakthrough here is it's high durability. I use isn't actually for computers, it's for Solar power; which will hep greatly.
Of course, this specific breakthrough was announce in 2009.
http://www.neg.co.jp/EN/pdf/200902_taiyomirror_en2.pdf [neg.co.jp]
Sure.. Invisible glass was invented in 1938(Katy Blodgrett?) That doesn't mean it can't be improved, nor does it mean that further development isn't worth noting.
So what
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If it's coated in this stuff, we probably won't know how close we are until we've hit it.
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Re:Invisible Doors, here ya go (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWkptScdhEE [youtube.com]
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Don't forget how TVs, monitors and Laptops all have shiny frames so you can get glare off that as well. Plus they look like crap as they attract finger prints. The last lasrge screen monitor we bought at work had a decent anti-glare screen but the frame was horridly shiny. We ended up spray painting the frame with flat black paint is was so bad.
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The SpongeBob episode where Squidward traveled to the future and everything was made of chrome may turn out to be oddly prophetic. Maybe it wasn't actually chrome, but just a very glossy finish.