Samsungs Smart Window: Part Window, Part Touch Screen

Samsung's Smart Window: Part-window, part-touch screen. Cue the Minority Report references. A “smart window” from Samsung took away the award for innovation at CES this year. What’s a smart window, and why do you need one right away?

There’s a bit of uncertainty around the term, it seems. When we introduced to you “smart windows” from Soladigm in August of 2010, we were referring to “tunable” windows that ran an electric current to adjust the amount of light that was let in. Here was a smart window like a smart meter, designed to save energy.

Samsung’s concept of a smart window is very different: basically, it would turn your window into something a lot more like an iPad. If windows and touchscreens had offspring, Samsung’s product would be it. The inevitable references to Minority Report abound.

The device is really a transparent touchscreen LCD that can be fitted to any window, so long as it’s no longer than some 46 inches. Resolution is 1366 x 768 pixels, reportedly. During the day, illumination is provided from outside. At night, built-in lights kick in. A video from Samsung video gives a nice overview:

At first glance, the window, while cool, isn’t necessarily innovative: it just brings all the apps and widgets we’ve come to love to your window. But Samsung has included a few unique touches. My favorite is the “blinds” feature, where with the swipe of your finger, you can open and close virtual blinds that will actually blot out the light.

A video report from MobileNations says that mass production will begin “in the coming months.” Samsung has indicated an intention to put the thing out by the end of the year. No word on price yet.

Aren’t there privacy concerns, as windows become devices for browsing, tweeting, and watching TV? Samsung assures that your neighbors won’t be able to see what you’re doing; the glass works like a one-way mirror when viewed from the outside.

Here’s the main problem with Samsung’s “smart window” concept, though: touchscreens, as Steve Jobs said, “don’t want to be vertical”--holding your arm out to fiddle with them just plain doesn’t feel nice, as I addressed in a post earlier in the week. Does that mean the only suitable market for a Samsung smart window is a glass-bottom boat? Maybe the "smarter" windows are Soladigm's after all.

Fun With Interactive Back Seat Windows: When I was kid, back seat entertainment on long car rides consisted of this: watching rain drops drag race down the window and fogging up the glass with my breath so I could draw lightning bolts on it with my finger. We've come a long way since then. DVD players, video game consoles and LCD monitors embedded into the head rests are now considered the vanguard of automotive babysitting. Furrow-browed parents yelling, "Quiet down back there!" have all but evaporated into the past.

Now, GM is developing a way to kids looking out the window again. Or at least, at it. The automaker basically handed over the reins to some researchers and students from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Israel to design applications that would run on back passenger seat windows. The "Windows of Opportunity" project (WOO takes advantage of electrically charged "smart glass" technology, which can reflect projected images but is still transparent.

The students produced a fully functional, full-scaled prototype on which they demoed their apps. Eye Click's motion and optical sensors equipped the window with multi-touch and gesture-sensing capabilities. Ironically, some of the ideas students came up with were quite similar to the pre-tech back seat window games of yore. For example, the Foofu app. It's essentially identical to fogging up the window with your breath and finger drawing, only with colored "condensation."

The Otto app also nods to an old favorite I remember achieving while holding a Superman action figure up to the window. The app features an animated character that is projected over passing scenery on the window, giving users the impression that the character is flying over the horizon as it responds in real time to the car's speed, weather and landscape.

Two Advances For Glass That Every Window Cleaner Should Know About

3M drew press and viewer interest earlier this week at CEATEC with its show of special film that the company has developed to coat ordinary, existing windows and convert them into solar panels. The product was shown on curved and regular glass surfaces. This “windows-transformative” film is to debut next year. Not only does the panel generate energy in sunlight, but it also serves as a heat-blocking layer.

The film is made from an organic photovoltaic material and fits on windows easily to generate power and cut heat. What is interesting about 3M's technology is its versatility. Claims are that it can generate power, behave as a coolant (absorbing over 90 percent of infrared light) and also protect windows from shattering. The film's narrow, translucent green strips have gaps between them and are glued to windows in large patches. Unlike solar paneling, the films are easy to install. An average person can install the films with no outside assistance, according to a 3M senior manager, Yasuhiro Aoyagi.

While the 3M film for windows appears to be an easy answer to complex and costly solar panel alternatives, the 3M product is not as effective as solar paneling. The film generates only 20 percent of the energy of a regular panel. A factoid frequently included in the CEATEC reports from Tokyo about the 3M product has been that a square meter of the film can generate roughly enough electricity to charge an iPhone under peak sunlight. No pricing details were available but expectations are that the film will be half to two-thirds the cost of solar panels. When the film for windows does hit the Japan market next year, the 3M target user base will be government structures, commercial buildings, and fast-food restaurants.

3M is no stranger to state-of-the-art development efforts in film. The company snagged the world's first patent for window films in 1966. 3M has recognized expertise in both adhesives and multi-layer optical films. Earlier this year, 3M was awarded $4.4 million from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The award, according to the company press release, was made under an initiative to reduce the total costs of photovoltaic solar energy systems by about 75 percent, so that they are cost-competitive with other forms of energy without subsidies.

Samsung breakthrough could turn your window pane into a big ol' LED: Samsung's quest for transparency won't end with laptops, apparently. Today, the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology announced that its engineers have successfully created "single crystalline Gallium Nitride on amorphous glass substrates" -- an achievement that would allow the manufacturer to produce jumbo-sized LEDs from normal glass, including window panes. Samsung says this scaled-up approach will allow them to lower production costs relative to most LED manufacturers, which rely on sapphire, rather than glass substrates. And, whereas most Gallium Nitride (GaN) LEDs on the market measure just two inches in size, Sammy's technique could result in displays about 400 times larger. "In ten years, window panes will double as lighting and display screens, giving personality to buildings," a Samsung spokesperson told the Korea Herald. Unfortunately, however, it will likely be another ten years before the technology is ready to hit the market. Until then, we'll just have to do our late night window coding the old fashioned way.