News of a breakthrough in transparent electronics, announced in the journal Nature Materials, went largely unnoticed over the Christmas break though the development has intriguing possibilities.

A lot of people have been trying to develop invisible electronics to drive displays, but no-one came up with solutions providing anything like an acceptable performance.

But transparent transistors developed by researchers at Chicago's Northwestern University are actually faster than standard silicon drivers and perform almost as well as high-end polysilicon devices. Moreover they can be manufactured a low-cost.

So what's the point? Professor Tobin Marks, who led the research team that developed the transistor, says it could lead to car windshields that display maps and see where you are going. Shop windows could display prices and information while allowing people to see goods on display. And you have images apparently floating in mid-air.

Conventional thin-film transistors used to build the matrix that switches on and off the pixels of TFT displays are not transparent, and therefore block some of the light in backlit screens. Presumably, therefore, transparent transistors would make screens more efficient.

Incidentally Philips has just filed a US patent for another (UK developed) technology that will make liquid-crystal screens more efficient. We'll report on that when we fine out more about it.