Now a transparent double-sided touchscreen smartphone

Japanese cellular network company NTT DoCoMo has unveiled an Android smartphone with a revolutionary feature: a transparent, double-sided touchscreen.

Japanese cellular network company NTT DoCoMo has unveiled an Android smartphone with a revolutionary feature: a transparent, double-sided touchscreen.

The prototype device was unveiled at the 17th edition of Wireless Japan, a Conference and Trade Show dedicated to wireless and mobile technologies in Japan.

The device was jointly developed by DoCoMo and Fujitsu and features a 2.4" QVGA (320 x 240) transparent display that is sensitive to touch on both sides of the screen.

DoCoMo has posted a video (in Japanese) showing a user touching both sides of the prototype device's display to manipulate a Rubik's Cube in three dimensions.

Masashi Tagaya, an employee at NTT DoCoMo's R&D Advanced Technology Group, Communication Device Development, explained to English-language Japanese technology news site DigInfo TV, "For example, from the front, you can only move the whole Rubik cube like this, but if you slide your finger across the front while holding down the back, you can rotate just one face. So this display makes gripping operations possible' in a video demonstrating how the prototype device works.

NTT Docomo is also showing off a 3D Live Communication System at Wireless Japan. The next generation video chat uses a mixture of augmented reality (AR) and 3D graphics to take participants on virtual adventures together.