LG's latest phone patent focuses on what can be done, but not if it should be
Smartphone patents are notorious for being filled with ideas of what is possible to build without any real regard for whether or not such a product would be: useful, usable, or even better in any way than what we have now. The latest patent from LG feels like the absolute apotheosis of these ideas because LG has had the idea to build a transparent foldable smartphone.
Now, obviously we've seen a few foldable phones recently and while they are certainly interesting and point to an exciting future in the smartphone market, there are still a lot of questions surrounding foldable phones in terms of usability, like: What the is the best way to fold -- in or out or twice? How should the software work? How long until it's possible to make a foldable phone that doesn't have a crease/bump on the screen at the point of the fold?
Well, rather than tackling any of those questions, LG wants to know: What if we made the whole thing transparent? To be fair, LG filed this patent back in 2015 and it just so happens that the USPTO only granted it now, so maybe LG has had better ideas in the past 4 years. But basically, LG's transparent foldable phone would have a screen with adjustable levels of transparency and half of the right side of the phone (when unfolded) would be opaque because there's no way to make a transparent battery or other components.
After thinking on it, the only real benefit we could see for having a transparent phone would be with augmented reality applications. Being able to overlay data on the real world while looking at the real world (without using your phone's camera, as is how it works now) could be better. It would theoretically mean no lag in getting the image of the real world from camera to screen because you're just looking through clear glass, and maybe even better battery life.
Any other ideas on why anyone would want this?
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