Clear Touch-Screen Tablet
The Iris Tablet PC concept is a transparent tablet with an OLED display and wireless charging that can scan documents, magnify items and translate texts, but the coolest part is its virtual reality application, with the ability to hold it up in front of you in the street for real-time, real-world pedestrian navigation. Transparent displays may very well be on the horizon for consumer tablets you can actually buy.
Transparent Wood
Even wood can be see-through these days, whether you’re talking about acrylic made to look like the real thing – like Nendo’s ‘transparent table’ – or actual wood fibers rendered ‘invisible.’ Swedish researchers have found a way to strip lignin (the pigmented material) from wood and replace it with polymer for a result that’s 85% transparent, with all the strength of opaque lumber. That could be huge in terms of building industry innovation, considering its potential use for load-bearing windows that will never shatter, not to mention entirely transparent wood structures.
Clear Acrylic Table & Chairs
A completely transparent acrylic meeting table surrounded by ten clear chairs complements transparent shelving, railings and other see-through elements in ‘POOL Inc.,’ a two-level office space for an ad agency in Japan. Created by Yoritaka Hayashi Architects, the set helps imbue the space with a sense of weightlessness, enhancing the transmission of natural daylight.
Monolithic Lounge Chair in Curved Transparent Glass
Says designer Karim Rashid of ‘Kleer,’ “I always wanted to create a chair of glass – to make the ultimate notion of lightness, a transparent floating immaterial vestige. I have designed several plexiglas chairs over the years and polycarbonate chairs but was always hoping to create a glass chair. But to enhance the sense of immateriality I also wanted to add new technology to the product, so I created a wing-like lounge with geometric planar surfaces supporting 2 flat technology speakers, so the chair not only speaks about visual transparency but audio ethereality.”
