Today in features nobody asked for:

What even is this? What do you mean what? This. It's a transparent TV and-ok, well, I suppose I answered my own question, but what I mean to say is why is this?

Did this person buy a transparent TV so they could watch
the TV on the wall behind it at the same time?

"Finally, a footboard that reads 19th century
Regency-era romance novels without
blocking my view of the bedroom wall."

-someone with niche interests

Well in a sense it's not. A thing that is, that is. It's a concept for a transparent TV, and not a commercial product. Not yet anyway. South Korean manufacturer LG demonstrated it as a part of this year's Consumer Electronics Show, an event which also wasn't thanks to COVID. Anyway, the minute long video shows the TV as positioned at the foot of a bed where it can wake you up, and then rise from its base to display the time and weather so you don't even have to look out of the floor to ceiling windows of your luxury apartment. Oh, and it's also reading Pride and Prejudice for some reason.

Which, I'm not sure I get the point of this. Do you remember a few months ago when we talked about that other TV, the one that rolled down into its base when not in use? The one that was also made by LG and costs eighty-thousand dollars? Of money? I mean, is this a thing people want and will pay eighty grand for?

"Shit, I hope so. If not, we're in trouble..."

-This LG spokesperson

This Plexiglas sneeze guard is 100%
transparent and costs just $50.
Ball's in your court, LG.

Because I kind of have a similar problem with this transparent screen. Do people want transparent screens? And if so, why? Most of us put our televisions on the wall right? Do we need to see what's on the other side? And from the video, this thing looks, like really hard to see. This latest version of the screen can get up to 40% transparent, up from 10% over a previous iteration of the technology and that's great I guess, but is there some transparency arms race I'm unaware of? Because it just seems like that would be super-impractical. 

I suppose it's more about the look than anything. If sci-fi has taught us anything it's that the future is all clear displays and holograms projected in the air in front of our faces. Impossible to read and eye-strain inducing? Sure, but that's just the price we'll pay for looking awesome.

Although I hope there isn't important, mission-critical information on that screen...