HP's plan to keep onlookers from seeing what's on your laptop screen goes on sale soon

HP will offer two of its business-themed Windows 10 laptops, the EliteBook 1040 and EliteBook 840, with its new Sure View integrated privacy screens, sometime in September.

HP announced its collaboration with 3M to create this technology in October 2015. Sure View integration in these two notebooks has been designed to keep visual hackers, or anyone else who is just generally nosey, from looking at the content displayed on these laptops:

Users simply press the f2 key to immediately transition the PC to privacy mode, which reduces up to 95 percent of visible light when viewed at an angle, making it difficult for others to view information on the screen.

HP added that the threat of hackers taking personal and sensitive information by just looking at a laptop screen is quite real:

Visual hacking is a real threat to a company's sensitive data, as demonstrated by the "Global Visual Hacking Experiment," a recent study conducted by the Ponemon Institute, sponsored by 3M. The study cited that nine out of 10 attempts to acquire sensitive business information using only visual means were successful, with nearly four pieces of private information visually hacked per trial. Visual hacking can also impact employee productivity, given almost 60 percent of employees take their work outside of office walls. A similar study by Ponemon Institute and sponsored by 3M also found that employees using a visual privacy solution can be twice as productive when working in close proximity to others.

HP did not state how much it would cost to add the Sure View option to the EliteBook 1040 and EliteBook 840 laptops.

John Callaham