Yeah, you read the title correctly.
In 2019, LG acquired the patent for a folding transparent phone.
How’s that even possible?!
While the technology to make certain components transparent — such as the camera or sim card doesn’t yet exist — the technology needed to make a transparent screen has existed for quite a while now.
Believe it or not, there’s more than one way to make transparent screens - I’ll tell you the most interesting one…
Two pieces of glass are coated with transparent & conductive material, (such as indium tin oxide) and a gel of polarizable molecules is sandwiched between them.
Basically a transparent phone screen oreo.
When an electric field is applied, the gel can go from transparent or non transparent, displaying whatever you want (just like a regular phone screen, except you’ll be able to see through it)
There’s a problem though - the parts that can’t be made transparent.
I’m not sure how LG is planning to work around that, but my best guess is that their phone will look similar to this 2013 prototype made by Polytron Technologies in Taiwan (except it’ll be foldable)
I’m definitely looking forward to seeing this phone once LG releases it (if they ever do)