See-Through OLED Displays and Screens Doubling as Speakers

The Associated Press
1/8/2019
Updated:
1/8/2019

This is a new display from LG Display.

It looks a bit like a standard OLED display, but with the press of a button it becomes transparent.

Transparent OLED displays have been shown before, but this one is the first one that you can’t see through when its displaying video.

The technology can be used for commercial products, such as in stores or shopping windows.

But within a decade the technology could become a reality in people’s homes.

“So right now it starts as a commercial product. But in ten years we also have plans on applying it to home products like TVs,” says Sungeon Park, LG Display product specialist.

LG Display is a subsidiary company to the South Korean electronics giant LG.

The products they create are licensed to many companies, not just LG.

“Transparent OLED displays have been on the market for quite some time. But one that you can’t see though demonstrates that we can see this technology evolve to transparent displays in our homes,” says Nicole Scott, editor of the Mobilegeeks technology news website.

“Right now it’s full HD but in the future for it to become a real world product it will need to be much higher resolution. And so, maybe in ten years we will see something like that come to market.”

LG Display is also showing an 88-inch 8K Crystal Sound television.

The Crystal sound screens act as a speaker by itself, eliminating the need to have speakers standing around in the living room.

This one comes with surround sound, meaning the sound tracks the movements on the screen.

When a car drives from right to left you hear the sound change with the car. Just like in a surround sound system, but here without the speakers.

Last year LG Display showed a rollable TV, and this year the technology has been made in to a product by LG and will be available to the market this year.

The 88-inch 8K Crystal Sound television and the transparent OLED displays could be the next product to hit the market.

“Last year at CES we saw the rollable display. And this year at CES we saw that same rollable display become a real world product. So at LG displays we see what is potentially coming out to the market,” says Scott.

CES 2019, the world’s largest tech conference, runs Jan. 8th—11th. Media previews began Jan. 6th.

More than 180,00 visitors are expected to attend the huge annual consumer electronics show in Las Vegas. The top trends this year are the Internet of Things (IoT), 5G and high-tech mobility.