Tech giant Lenovo has shared a conceptual design that combines augmented reality with traditional laptop functionality.
The Mobile World Congress event is currently taking place in Barcelona, Spain and many companies are there to showcase mobile technology currently in development.
Chinese tech giant Lenovo has a history of displaying exotic new concepts at the event, and this year is no different, with Lenovo revealing a unique type of laptop with a transparent screen.
Looking much like a prop from Star Trek or The Expanse, the laptop’s most eye-catching feature is the transparent screen, which Lenovo claims can integrate augmented reality (AR) tech.
CNBC journalists at the event were treated to a demonstration where a Lenovo representative placed an artificial sunflower behind the screen. The laptop camera was able to identify the object as a sunflower, and then provide information on it, annotating the object with facts about its seeds derived from an AI-powered database.
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Not intended for sale
In addition to the transparent screen, the unnamed Lenovo laptop concept features a trackpad with a virtual touch keyboard, along with a stylus that can be used to draw or navigate. This also informs a possible use case for the laptop screen.
Lenovo postulated a scenario where a builder or architect could sit in front of a building needing renovation and use the stylus to draw and annotate what work needed to be done, directly on a live capture of the building.
Strides in AR and mixed reality tech have led to several industry uses in areas such as training, remote working, and collaboration, so it is possible that similar functions could be found for this unusual laptop. However, Lenovo confirmed that the transparent screen laptop was merely a concept, and the company has no plans to sell or mass produce the device.