The PaperPhone

This is the look of tomorrow's smartphone

by The Daily Telegraph

04:46 AM May 10, 2011

VANCOUVER - Researchers have demonstrated a flexible smartphone that can be controlled by being bent, written on or used as a touchscreen.

The PaperPhone, built to determine how people use a flexible device, is a collaboration between researchers from Queen's University in Kingston, Canada, Arizona State University, the United States and researchers from the E-Ink Corporation.

"This is the future. Everything is going to look and feel like this within five years," Mr Roel Vertegaal, director of the human media lab at Queen's, said. "This computer looks, feels and operates like a small sheet of interactive paper."

The epaper sheet, which uses the same e-Ink technology found in the Kindle ereader, is only millimetres thick and can be used to make phone calls, read ebooks and play music.

The researchers say this could eventually mean the end of paper and printers. Dr Vertegaal said: "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."

The PaperPhone will be displayed today at the Association of Computing Machinery's CHI 2011 conference in Vancouver.

Source: www.todayonline.com