Everything above kilo (1,000) is expressed with a capital letter so Mb and Gb; mb is millibytes (one thousandth of a byte) - Guardian correction
|
|
|
Researchers develop a bendable paper phone
CANADIAN RESEARCHERS have devleoped a prototype mobile phone made from electronic paper.
The Paperphone uses a flexible display that can be bent in different ways to execute a series of actions, otherwise known as 'bend sensing' or bend gesture input recognition.
The phone is made from a 3.7-inch Bloodhound flexible electrophoretic display, created by the Arizona State University Flexible Display Centre, and a layer of five two-inch Flexpoint bidrectional bend sensors. It is powered by the E Ink Boradsheet AM 300 Kit, including a Gumstix processor.
The researchers chose six 'bend gesture pairs' from a total of 87 identified by participants of their study. These are similar to touchscreen gestures like pinching the screen, but focus on bending or flexing the phone's thin surface to perform an action.
The six gestures include bending the side of the display up or down, the top corner up or down, and the bottom corner up or down. The scientists also decided that navigating to the left would involve an upwards bend gesture, while navigating to the right would involve a downwards one, defining polarity for the movements.
The possibilities for the technology are broad. It could be used in place of a standard smartphone, or a kind of electronic pocketbook could be made available, where different information and bend actions pertaining to that information is available on a unique page.
The researhers acknowledged that traditional rigid displays will have the edge in terms of efficiency for some time to come, since it is easier to input information using a finger, stylus or keypad than by bending the screen, but they believe that there is great potential in flexible displays that could result in mass consumer adoption.
The prototype will be shown at the Computer Human Interaction event, which will be held in Vancouver, Canada on May 10. µ
Tags: Hardware
Share this:
Share
I've seen the picture, the display is somewhat bendy but attached to its side is a big block that I presume is the actual phone, and the whole thing is more bulky than phones from years ago.
And I agree. it's pointless unless you find a way where it's useful, which they did not do so far, and it's not the first showing of bendable displays with the 'seeking for a home' effect.
Flexible screens = Good.
Bending as a method of input = Bad.
Honestly this kinda reminds me of a nokia concept design from many years ago where the phone was like those snapping wrist things from the 90's ie in use it would be a long thin rigid phone but you could then curl it around your wrist like a bracelet when you weren't using it. That said that concept was still based on simple touch input which frankly is more logical and simpler then bending a screen. I mean which makes more sense to you for scrolling purposes A. sliding your finger up and down the screen or B. bending the upper right corner of the screen up or down? I got a feeling 99% of you will say A and that's just one example. For that matter putting a touchscreen phone in your pocket is bad enough if you forgot to lock it, imagine how bad it will be if you forget to lock this thing before putting it in there. Seriously every time you take a step it would probably attempt 3-4 different command.