Make no mistake, there are plenty of outfits out there looking to snap up your loose change in exchange for a pre-built rollup keyboard, but if you just can't stand that 'board that came bundled in with your last pre-fab PC, we think there's a better alternative. Apparently, all you have to do is remove the inner membrane from an unwanted set of keys, make sure the control board is accurately reassembled onto said membrane and cut out letters in the font of your choosing to keep you on track when your touch typing skills begin to fade. That's it -- an über-painless, amazingly easy and absolutely inelegant method of crafting your own rollable keyboard. Hit up the read link for all, oh, five steps.

[Via MAKE]

We'll admit, we can't recall seeing a rollable silicon keyboard that deserved to be called gorgeous, but Brando's iteration isn't even close. 'Course, those enamored with glowing lights and plastic-y gizmos may not find much room to grumble, but all aesthetics aside, this thing is reportedly "strong, silent and indestructible." Moreover, the $27 device is said to be dustproof and water-resistant, can be connected via USB or PS/2 and comes in white, pink, blue and green.

Talk about a long time coming, as what is now Polymer Vision has seemed to finally put all the pieces together and produce an actual working product from the idea envisioned by Philips around two years ago. We knew the spinoff was looking to commercialize the product later this year, but after nearly 24 months of coming up empty, a bit of understandable skepticism begins to seep through. Nevertheless, the firm's rollable, pocket-friendly "Cellular-Book" was out and showing its stuff at 3GSM, proving that there's at least something there to put on store shelves. Although the unit on display was indeed a standalone device -- sporting 16 shades of grey, USB, "10-days" of battery life, 4GB of internal storage, and GPRS, EDGE, and DVB-H connectivity just like we'd heard -- Polymer Vision is actually hoping to integrate its e-paper technology into mobile handset displays in the near future. Sadly, there still didn't seem to be any hints of a release date for the nifty pocket reader, but be sure to click on through for the very long awaited pictures of the Readius in action.

[Via Slashdot]

If there's one thing the business-savvy CEOs of the world know, it's that you don't want your competition to get too far ahead of you, and just as Plastic Logic announced its plans to build the first electronic paper plant in Dresden, Germany, Polymer Vision is trying to make good on its nearly two-year old promise. During 2005's IFA expo, Philip assured us all that we'd be blown away by the firm's rollable, bendable displays in a mere two years, and now that 24 months have nearly elapsed, a company spinoff is looking to make it happen. According to a German report, Polymer Vision is still on track for "commercializing the foldable PV-QML5 display" that we've all grown quite fond of. Planning to use the technology in e-books and electronic map guides, the initial 4.8-inch display will tout a 320 x 200 resolution, 10:1 contrast ratio, support for four gray tones, and be only 100 micrometers thick. Sadly, no hard dates were passed down as to when we could expect the first production batch to head out to consumers, but now that there's some serious competition brewing just a few miles down the road, we'd bet a good bit of effort goes into making that 2007 date a reality.

[Via I4U]

So we haven't really seen a whole lot of people unfurling those rollable keyboards in public -- not because they look rather silly, but because they're almost as much of a pain in the ass to type on as those almost unusable virtual laser keyboards. Well, a Japanese company known as the Kimura Metal Industrial Corporation thinks that it may have just the 'board to overcome people's aversion to these products in the form of the waterproof eMARK Super Mobile Keyboard, whose vinyl coating should ward off even the nastiest coffee spills. Ranging in height from just one millimeter to five millimeters at its thickest point, the eMARK SMK features a retractable USB cable and comes in your choice of black or white. Again, we'll take a folding Bluetooth 'board over one of these models any day of the week, but if you're looking to get your roll on, you can pick one of these up later this month --in Japan, at least -- for the bargain basement price of only 2,980 yen (about $26).