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You are here: MacNN Forums > Software - Troubleshooting and Discussion > GUI Customization > pseudo-transparent apple displays

pseudo-transparent apple displays
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darrick
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Mar 30, 2005, 07:58 PM
 
i'm doing this as soon as i can find where my girlfriend put my digital camera.

some french mac users have started snapping a picture of what's behind their diplays and using that pic as their desktops -- giving the illusuion of a transparent display, so it looks like you are looking past your icons and through the clear glass and seeing the back wall (or whatever).

for examples, see macbidouille.com
     
cruciarius
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Mar 30, 2005, 08:45 PM
 
yeah, those look cool. i posted about them on resexcellence earlier this week and a few people were really interested in them.

what i'd like to see is some how set up a camera, behind the screen, so its the same as those, but moving. would only really look good, if the screen isn't against a wall though.
     
eatinwokout
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Mar 30, 2005, 11:26 PM
 
yeh there's a great collection of these types of pics over at flickr. just search for transparent or transparentdesktop tags.
     
darrick  (op)
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Mar 31, 2005, 11:36 AM
 
my first attempt doesn't look too hot. i think a lot of my problem was using a flash and, of course, framing the picture properly. there was no illusion of transparency. i hope this isn't something that only looks good in a picture and not so realistic in real life.
     
gautch
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Mar 31, 2005, 12:14 PM
 
ohh... Does any one else think this is getting old?
     
Anilan
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Apr 1, 2005, 03:53 AM
 
Old to some, new to others!
     
Kyros
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Apr 3, 2005, 02:47 PM
 
Originally posted by darrick:
my first attempt doesn't look too hot. i think a lot of my problem was using a flash and, of course, framing the picture properly. there was no illusion of transparency. i hope this isn't something that only looks good in a picture and not so realistic in real life.
It will never look very realistic in real life, because it only looks right at one exact angle.
     
Jasoco
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Apr 6, 2005, 05:37 AM
 
What would be better is when they start designing computer screens that can be seen all the way through. Now, this is quite possible now, but it's just a matter of the OS handling it. Still, it's cool to dream of a Minority Report world.
     
Randman
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Apr 6, 2005, 05:42 AM
 
I think it would look better in a picture than in real life.

Ugh, transparent displays. Unless there would be an option to make them oblique. Hate to actually work on one with a transparent monitor.

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Jasoco
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Apr 6, 2005, 05:44 AM
 
They're usually meant for bright colors in dark rooms or (In the case of Matrix Revolutions) dark lines in a white room. Not really suitable for personal use. Your house or den would have to be built to acomodate your unique display to make you able to see it. Still, it's something I'd like to see.
     
Randman
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Apr 6, 2005, 05:46 AM
 
You've never tried to type business emails or wrote an article in an airport.

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Jasoco
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Apr 6, 2005, 05:48 AM
 
No I haven't, but what do you mean?
     
Randman
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Apr 6, 2005, 05:53 AM
 
Having a transparent screen would be difficult to use when there's movement in front of you. Or when the pattern shifts regularly. With a few apps, you can make your file (Safari) for example semi-transparent. Try that with the app that lets you use a screensaver as a desktop and try and do any serious work with it.
It'll look cool as hell when it's not being used, but to actually make it workable for more than a few seconds is another thing all together.

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Gerrit Vanoppen
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Apr 6, 2005, 05:56 AM
 
How about this
     
Randman
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Apr 6, 2005, 06:01 AM
 
Looks cool, but again I'd question the real world application. Imagine a Starbucks with 20 different users with all their screens floating about. You'd have screen jams and screen rage from people's Adium messages intruding into others' iTunes space.


Plus, the battery drain would be a bitch. Nice for Keynote though.

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Jasoco
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Apr 6, 2005, 06:07 AM
 
Originally posted by Randman:
Having a transparent screen would be difficult to use when there's movement in front of you. Or when the pattern shifts regularly. With a few apps, you can make your file (Safari) for example semi-transparent. Try that with the app that lets you use a screensaver as a desktop and try and do any serious work with it.
I already took that into account. Remember in Martix, the room was completely white and all the graphics on the "displays" (Which weren't real anyway, it was part of their own separate "Matrix") were black lines.

In Minority Replrt, the space behind the screen was always dark and the light from the display made it easy to see it on the glass.

At home in the movie, his "den" had empty space behind the computer (Hense the "build your house around your computer" thing, and a cool feature was to project the screen onto the full wall, but that's another thing.

The point is, if this stuff were real, I'm sure we'd definately make it work.
     
crooner
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Apr 6, 2005, 11:52 PM
 
Originally posted by Gerrit Vanoppen:
How about this
Now that is COOL! I can see that as a wonderful and racialistic evolution of the desktop and GUI.

The next step, as mentioned here would be the ability to manually interact with the holographic images.

A long ways off, but still doable. Great link, Gerrit.

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Anubis IV
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Apr 7, 2005, 02:29 AM
 
Originally posted by Gerrit Vanoppen:
How about this
That would be great for desktop situation, but for laptops or other portables...I dunno. You'd have absolutely no privacy since as far as I know there would be no way to prevent people that are, say, sitting across the table from you from reading the stuff you are looking at (albeit backwards). Not to mention that after the initial "wow" factor wore off, people would find 50" wide holograms to be rather annoying in their businesses since they take up so much space (even if that space is virtual). Interesting idea, nonethless, and I concur that it is a logical progression from modern day technologies and the like. Honestly, though, I'm looking forward more to the cloth-based monitors that are based on OLED technology than holograms. Dunno if the cloth montors will see the light of day, but I find the very notion intriguing, and I think it would be quite useful.
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Jasoco
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Apr 7, 2005, 03:26 AM
 
I doubt that technology's meant for Laptops. It just used a laptop as an example. They could have put a keyboard and a Mini there and done the same thing.
     
darrick  (op)
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Apr 10, 2005, 01:03 PM
 
here's a link to a 'shop tutorial to make a 'transparent' desktop.
     
Jasoco
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Apr 11, 2005, 09:03 PM
 
There, I did it.


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