From smart TVs to transparent smart windows, more and more devices are connected to the Internet and deliver and track data.

FORBES: 2012: The Year of Acceleration

"We are excited by this new invention on transparent solar cells, which applied our recent advances in transparent conducting windows (also published in ACS Nano) to fabricate these devices, " said Paul S.Weiss, CNSI director and Fred Kavli Chair in NanoSystems Sciences.

ENGADGET: UCLA creates transparent solar cell, dreams of current generating windows

"These results open the potential for visibly transparent polymer solar cells as add-on components of portable electronics, smart windows and building-integrated photovoltaics and in other applications, " said study leader Yang Yang, a UCLA professor of materials science and engineering, who also is director of the Nano Renewable Energy Center at California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI).

ENGADGET: UCLA creates transparent solar cell, dreams of current generating windows

On the desktop, windows have a flatter, two-dimensional feel, meaning the old transparent bordering is a thing of the past.

ENGADGET: Microsoft Surface with Windows RT review