Transparent phones in movies

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Probably you have noticed that most Sci-Fi movies and series have people who use transparent phones, how stupid is this ? It's bad because you get distracted when you look at the screen and everyone sees what you are doing on your phone...
But the real question is, do you like it how it looks in the movies ? Because every director thinks that transparent phones look good and that's why they keep using them. This has sense, but the problem is that transparent phones look just stupid and not nice in movies, or maybe I'm wrong ?
What do you think ?
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corumeach's avatar
It's absolutely ok if you don't like them, but I think most people will think they look impressive. If they make sense is a different issue. These are being depicted in the syfy series The Expanse: gndn.files.wordpress.com/2016/…

These are going to become real pretty soon (or not): bestsmartphone2015.net/transpa…

I think the idea is taken from the old hologram or holographic concept, which never worked well as surrounding light is pretty much a show stopper. In space, inside asteroid mining tunnel, aboard space ships light is pretty rare and brightly glowing handhelds could make sense (if they don't consume tons of energy in doing so). Still, a one-directional display would be enough.

I'd say the ideas is, that the handheld body is nothing more than cheap transparent plastic, used as a surface to project images onto. There will be a tiny energy cell and a central processor somewhere near the edge, along with the projector. Maybe imbedded into the plastic sheet. I doubt that powerful smart handhelds can exist without an uplink to some database/computer carried as a bracelt, built in the suit or it simply connects to the stations/ships technology. I'd expect them to be smart displays, capable of transfering data to and from a processing engine somewhere in the vicinity.

So basically I think that transparent smartphones is a bit limited a concept, I'd say many sci-fi movies try to show you some sort of smart display for easy access to data, making video/phone calls ist such a minor task they can easily do this.

People will run around with something like this all the time in the near future. Societies and cultural behaviour change rapidly when technology changes. I think running around with a bluetooth headset and talking to yourself is more idiotic than using these handhelds.

Gesture controlled interfaces are not sci-fi, but it seems, that neither speech-control nor gesture-control are the best solution and have more benefits than using your fingers to actually type, swipe or whatever. Just remember Minority Report - man, this looked like real work, you don't have to pay for the gym if you have an office job in that future... I doubt anyone could use these kind of control for longer than a minute or maybe five.

Using transparent displays has one major flaw: data security/privacy. But the again, we are talking about the future, I doubt that data privacy will be an issue in about 15-25 years, as there will be no more privacy left. The net will now it all.