This is a guest article by Sri Peruvemba
For those of us in the tech industry, inventions from the iconic Star Wars saga and Star Trek series have led to decades of inspiration - some of which we are still trying to build today. Even over the last few years, I have been thrilled to see many of my colleagues pushing the envelope on next generation digital display technologies. One segment of this industry I see opportunities for innovation is what I call “disappearing” displays - displays that don't get in the way when they aren't being viewed, so to speak. Sort of like the character Jeeves in P.G. Wodehouse’s popular novels who could appear and disappear at will.
Let me give you a little bit more context around this. Have you noticed people turning towards their Alexa/Google Assistant devices to ask a question? Or noticed people in a conference room on an audio call, staring at the phone while speaking? How about in the car where people turn to the GPS display while speaking on their hands-free phone? Why is this? Humans are visual creatures. But we also want to see displays when we need them; the rest of the time we would prefer for them to be out of the way, merged with the background, virtually disappearing until we need them again.