A Phone You Can See From Both Sides

By Roland Piquepaille

Below are photos from a prototype phone seen from both sides (Credit: Mitsubishi).

You can find larger versions of these photographs on this K-Tai Watch page (in Japanese).

How does this work?

Mitsubishi Electric's new display incorporates a conventional LCD panel with newly designed backlights constructed in a three-layer sandwich in which the display sits at the center and the backlights are on the outer edge. The new backlights are transparent and so enable the single LCD panel at the center to be seen from both sides even though it is in the center of the sandwich. For viewing from the right, for example, the left-hand backlight transmits light through the panel and on through the right-hand backlight to the viewer.

Mitsubishi showed two prototypes.

The first version allows a single image to be viewed from both sides of the same panel. The image isn't adjusted depending on the viewing direction, so from one side text appears correctly and from the other side it appears reversed. A second type gets over this problem by rapidly changing the image on the display in synchronization with each back light 120 times per second so that the same image, correctly displayed, is projected in each direction 60 times per second.

Mitsubishi says that these new phones with only one LCD panel will cost a third less than current ones having two separate displays. It also expects to use this technology in other devices, such as PDAs.

When will this technology be available? As soon as Mitsubishi finds customers for it.

Source: Martyn Williams, IDG News Service, February 18, 2004