In what could be a major relief to computer users, Microsoft has come up with a screen that will allow only users looking straight at it to view the display contents. Often, when you are computing in public – whether on laptops, tablets or smartphones, you have people looking at your gadgets’ screen. That is not comfortable to everyone.
To prevent others from looking at what you are doing, Microsoft has designed a display that will not show anything “sensible” to people looking at the screen from angles different from 0 degrees. The new private display was uncovered by Patently Mobile when it followed Microsoft’s attempt to patent the display screen.
Private Display is not a new thing as Apple too had designed something similar in the past, had it patented, but could not put it to real use. There are display protectors that too work in a similar way but unfortunately, they cannot be used on all types of screens – as the size and format of gadgets differ. The idea behind Microsoft’s new Private Display is to allow only eye sight lines that fall in 0 degrees to show the complete display in a clear way. People around the users looking at the screen would be looking at angles different from 0 degrees and hence will not be able to see what exactly is on the screen of gadget you are using.
If put to use, the private display might come with Microsoft Lumia phones and Surface devices in future. Microsoft may even license the system to its original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) so that they too can offer similar protection to their users working on Windows operating systems. However, as with Apple, there are doubts if the private display will really be put to use in real life. It depends on how interested Microsoft is – about providing privacy in crowd to its users.
