Apple may chip away at slimming down their ‘iDevices’ to the extremes, but we aren’t expecting iPhone iterations to get as slim as this next innovation soon enough. The PaperPhone flexible smartphone prototype created by a team at the Queen’s university actually acts a bit like paper.
Consisting of a 9.5cm diagonal thin-film flexible E-ink display, the device is capable of working such as calling, playing music or storing eBooks like a normal smartphone. It apparently does not give users the feeling that they’re handling a sheet of glass or metal. This development is anticipated to usher in a generation of light and flexible computers.
“This is the future. Everything is going to look and feel like this within five years,†cites creator Roel Vertegaal, Director, Queen’s University Human Media Lab, “This computer looks, feels and operates like a small sheet of interactive paper. You interact with it by bending it into a cell phone, flipping the corner to turn pages, or writing on it with a pen.â€
Vertegaal continues to elaborate, “The paperless office is here. Everything can be stored digitally and you can place these computers on top of each other just like a stack of paper, or throw them around the desk.â€
These visions of paper-free office spaces may just take solid form in the future since digital storage and interaction through such ultra-thin gadgets could efface the need for paper or printers. The PaperPhone flexible smartphone will be flaunted at the Association of Computing Machinery’s CHI 2011 conference in Vancouver on May 10.
The development team even offered a peek at the ‘Snaplet’ which will also be on show at the said event. As its name suggests, the device in question is a thin-film wristband computer which can be worn around the arm.
