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| - Fact Check: This futuristic 'transparent smartphone' is literally just a piece of glass and some VFX
A see-through smartphone may be making its way to the markets soon.
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India Today Fact Check
This video does not show a real device. It's a piece of glass made to look like a smartphone using VFX.
A visual element that has been a staple of sci-fi movies and shows is that in the nebulous distant future, everything from monitors to TVs to hand-held devices is transparent. Tech companies have tried to capitalise on the futurists’ love for this sort of elegant minimalism.
However, transparency in hand-held, as of now, is limited to see-through back panels. Though not for long, if some social media posts are to be taken seriously, a see-through smartphone may be making its way to the markets soon.
A video making the rounds on social media shows a person holding a smartphone as transparent as glass. As the person surfs through the settings and icons in the menu, his fingers can be seen holding the phone from the back. Not only that, the person then puts this smartphone on a wireless charger — just as transparent as the smartphone it is charging.
People shared the video of this phone, writing: “This is a transparent smartphone design. Coming soon in our market.” While some admired the device’s beauty, others replied to the tweet with their theories on how this futuristic phone was made. Archives of such posts can be seen here, here , and here.
AFWA found that this transparent smartphone is indeed too good to be true. The video, in fact, does not show a smartphone at all but a piece of glass and some VFX.
AFWA PROBE
A reverse search of the keyframes from the viral video led us to the website of AE Tips and Tricks which lists tutorials shared by different YouTube channels and designers for Adobe After Effects, a VFX and motion graphics software. On the website, we found a video tutorial for creating a transparent phone, shared by VFX Studio Koliba in April 2019. Before the tutorial began, the video showed a person using a see-through smartphone. This was the same as the viral clip.
Following that, a behind-the-scenes clip revealed that the person in the video was holding a piece of glass shaped like a smartphone with curved edges. Later, this glass became the “Transparent Smartphone” with the help of After Effects. This YouTube channel has, similarly, shared video tutorials for making different devices like TV, and a Smart Bracelet transparent. Not just that, the channel also has tutorials for making mind-boggling videos of a man pouring juice from a smartphone or bringing objects from a TV screen into reality.
Sadly, a smartphone as see-through as the one in the viral video does not exist as of yet. However, the concept of transparent phones is not new in itself. LG GD900, a slider phone equipped with a see-through keyboard, is considered the world's first transparent phone that was launched in 2009. Subsequently, companies came up with transparent displays, and prototypes of see-through phones.
In 2018, Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi announced its first “transparent” smartphone with a see-through back panel, but it wasn’t received well by the public.
Most recently, the British technology startup, Nothing, released the much-hyped transparent phone — the Nothing Phone. Meanwhile, companies like Samsung and LG have also patented technology needed to make transparent smartphones. However, the existing concepts and devices are nowhere near the transparent phone shown in the viral video.
(Written by Sanjana Saxena)
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