flexible
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LG putting 9.7-inch color, 19-inch flexible e-paper displays into production
LG's shown off plenty of display prototypes that may or may not ever wind up in actual products, but it looks like two of them are about to get real -- a recent SEC filing has revealed that LG is expecting to put both a 9.7-inch color e-paper display and a 19-inch flexible e-paper display into mass production by the end of the year. Details beyond that are expectedly light -- including any word on what type of products they'll be used in -- but the 19-inch display is apparently the same one we first saw back in January (pictured above). That could conceivably be used for a newspaper-sized device, or possibly things like digital signage, which might be a tad more likely given the constraints in tacking a touchscreen layer and other components on top of the display.
MIT's piezoelectric fibers can act as speaker or microphone, don't mind auto-tune
Piezoelectric materials work quite simply, in theory -- motion in, electricity out, or vice versa -- and since that's just how speakers and microphones transmit their sound, it's not much of a stretch to imagine someone would figure out audio on a micron scale. That someone is MIT's Yoel Fink, who's reportedly engineered a marvelous process for producing fibers that can detect and emit sound. Following up their famous work on flexible cameras, Fink's team discovered they could keep piezoelectric strands rigid enough to produce audible vibrations by inserting graphite, AKA pencil lead. Better yet, the lab process can apparently make the threads on a fairly large scale, "yielding tens of metres of piezoelectric fibre" at a single draw. The potential for fabric made from such fibers is fantastic, of course -- especially combined with this particular scientist's previous research into camera cloth.
HP's McKinney hints that a flexible display Palm device could happen
Speaking at MobileBeat in San Francisco today, HP's Phil McKinney chatted up the company's flexible display tech, which uses rugged Mylar-infused sheets similar to those found in solar panels and can display video while still being bistable the same way E Ink is -- in other words, it'll hold an image without power. Thankfully, this seems to be more than a pipe dream sitting in a lab somewhere, because McKinney went on to say that "these are the kinds of display technologies that will change what we think of in form factors, both in products from Palm with flexible displays, and with HP." In other words, it's entirely within the realm of reason to imagine a bendy webOS device that gingerly sips battery juice -- or stops sipping it altogether -- while you're reading the morning news. We wouldn't expect it any time soon, of course, but it's encouraging to hear a conservative industry behemoth like HP start to talk like this. In the meantime, can we just get a new Pre, guys?%Gallery-97337%
Seeeduino Film is just the thing for all your flexible Arduino needs
The Arduino microcontroller: fuel for so many delightfully geeky projects. Your wacky instruments and DIY 'less lethal' weapons will be getting a lot 'looser' soon, thanks to Seeed Studio and it's Arduino compatible flexible printed circuit (FPC) board. Unlike most circuit boards, the insulating material in an FPC is -- wait for it -- flexible (hence the name). Featuring a fully functional Atmega 168 / 328 breakout, USB-Serial interface, a built-in charger circuit, and more, the Seeeduino Film only exists in prototype form at the moment. That said, the company said that it is making several units available "for community inspiration." Hop on over to the source link to get in on the ground floor.
Toshiba flexes its paper-thin LCD muscle, moves the world (video)
Toshiba's found an interesting use for flexible LCD technology: user input. At SID 2010, the Japanese display manufacturer showed off an 8.4-inch wide, 0.1mm thick SVGA panel that could be grabbed and physically bent to zoom in or out using Google Earth. While it's a far cry from 6DOF and perhaps not as entertaining as controlling the time-space continuum with forefinger and thumb, the bend sensor seems like an obvious addition to the gamut of crisp, rollable, data storing, energy generating flexible tech already in development. It's also worth noting that Toshiba isn't the only one working on the idea; IBM filed a patent application for "flexible displays as an input device" back in 2006. Video after the break. [Thanks, Lennart]
E Ink shows off brighter, crisper, more flexible displays
It's easy to forget that E Ink is an actual company and not just a display technology, but the company was out in full force at the recent SID 2010 conference to remind folks of that fact, and show off some of its latest and greatest prototype displays. Chief among those is a new color display that promises crisper, brighter colors, though still not quite full color -- something that's apparently achieved by applying a filter on top of a regular black and white E Ink panel, which itself has blacker blacks and whiter whites than before. Also on display was a new "fully flexible" display (not color), and another black and white display that was apparently able to playback Flash video -- although E Ink curiously wasn't allowing anyone to film it in action. The folks from MIT's Technology Review did manage to capture a brief look at the rest of them on video, however -- hit up the link below for their report.
Sony's rollable OLED display can wrap around a pencil, our hearts (video)
Nothing says "future" quite like a rollable display. Today Sony's giving us a glimpse into what will one day be with its 80μm-thick organic TFT-driven OLED display. The 4.1-inch display integrates Sony organic thin-film transistors and OLED technology onto a flexible 20μm substrate lacking any rigid driver IC chips. As such it can be wrapped around a cylinder with a 4-mm minimum radius. Display specs include a 432 x 240 pixel resolution (121ppi) supporting 16M colors while exceeding 100nits brightness and a 1,000:1 contrast. It's still research, but it's clearly advancing towards product... someday. See it in action after the break.
LG flexible display patent application includes fever-dreams of future devices
We're still a ways out from real-world applications of flexible displays, but LG is preparing for the future: it's just filed a patent application that details changing a flexible display's touch sensitivity depending on the state of the display, and it's included some intriguing drawings of potential devices with the application. Specifically, the patent application includes claims referencing cylindrical, prism, folding, "rolling," "freestyle," and "hybrid" body shapes, which all sound pretty intense -- especially the hybrid body, which is a "combination of the folding body and rolling body." Of course, patent applications don't always turn into granted patents, let alone shipping products, but if you're in the mood to stare wistfully at line art and dream about the future, the full PDF is at the source link.
HP flexible display unfurled on video
HP has been working on flexible displays for some time now, but it looks like things are starting to get a bit more real. Not real as in actual products, mind you -- but real like a big, flexible display spotted out in the wild. Doing the honors for this one is Hardware.info, which not only snapped shot above, but captured some of the action on video (head on past the break for that). Interestingly, HP doesn't actually see these panels being used in truly flexible or rollable displays -- the material itself would only survive being rolled up about a half dozen times -- but instead sees them being used to simply make displays thinner and lighter. [Thanks, Frank]
Caltech gurus whip up highly efficient, low cost flexible solar cell
Solar cells are cute and all, but let's be real -- these things are far too inefficient for mainstream use. Scientists at the California Institute of Technology are working hard to remedy that very issue, and they've recently concocted a "new type of flexible solar cell that enhances the absorption of sunlight and efficiently converts its photons into electrons." The solution relies on arrays of long, thin silicon wires embedded onto a polymer substrate, which uses just a fraction of the expensive semiconductor materials required by conventional solar cells. According to professor Harry Atwater, these cells have "surpassed the conventional light-trapping limit for absorbing materials" for the first time, and we're told that the arrays can convert between 90 and 100 percent of the photons they absorb into electrons, and yes, that does mean that they have a near-perfect internal quantum efficiency. Hit the source link for all the technobabble, and cross your fingers for this stuff to get the honored approval of the Governator.
Nokia patent application points to flexible phone displays
It may still be quite a ways from realizing its ambitious Morph concept, but it looks like Nokia has been toying around with the idea of flexible displays as of late, as evidenced by a just-published patent application (first filed back in 2008). Covering a "user interface, device and method for a physically flexible device," the application details (among other things) how a flexible display might be used on a phone to do things other than make it more portable. Most interestingly, that includes bending the phone into a particular shape to perform a specific task -- Nokia suggests rolling it into a can to search for a bar or pub, or bending it into a bowl to search for a restaurant. Not exactly the most imaginative examples, to be sure, although we're sure Nokia will have plenty of time to come up with some more interesting uses before any such phones actually hit the market. [Thanks, Anand]
Art Lebedev introduces 'Fleximus' camera concept
Well, it looks like Art Lebedev has more than the rather ingenious Transparentius concept in store for us today -- it's also introduced this so-called Fleximus concept for a flexible digital camera. Not exactly anything new there, per se, but Art Lebedev seems to be pitching this one specifically to photographers, not just folks that want to peek in hard-to-see places. To that end, the Fleximus comes equipped with a proper viewfinder on one end of camera, which can also be detached and replaced with a 3-inch LCD module (check it out after the break). Of course, this is still just a concept so there's nothing in the way of specs, but you can get an exhaustive look at the design process at the link below.
Flexible, organic flash memory on tap at the University of Tokyo
If the University of Tokyo has its way, we could be seeing an onslaught of flexible computing devices sooner than you think! Earlier this year the school made some noise with its stretchable OLED prototype and now a research group led by Takeo Someya and Tsuyoshi Sekitani has developed a non-volatile, flexible organic flash memory that may someday be used for large-area sensors, electronic paper devices, and non-volatile memory. Using a polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) resin sheet arrayed with memory cells, the memory can be bent until its curvature radius reaches 6mm without causing mechanical or electrical degradation. As it stands now, the device has a memory retention time of one day -- but the team maintains that this can be "drastically improved by reducing the size of the element and employing an SAM with a long molecular length." Piece of cake, right?
Bridgestone announces flexible touchscreen color e-reader
When we heard word of a "big announcement" back in July we imagined an e-reader of some sort, but what is it that we have here? Based on a technology Bridgestone calls Quick-response Liquid Powder, the company's all-color touchscreen e-book reader is about 5.8mm thick, features a 13.1-inch touch-sensitive e-paper display (with 4,096 colors and a refresh rate of about 0.8 seconds), and some sort of unspecified mobile phone connectivity. Most exciting, of course, is that the entire package -- circuit board, touchscreen, and housing -- are designed to bend together. A neat trick, sure, but probably not too practical for jotting down notes with your stylus. Still, we'd take two. Trials begin at the Kansai Urban Banking Corp early next year, but you can check it out sooner at FPD International 2009 in Yokohama City, Japan, starting tomorrow. [Via Tech-On]
AUO demonstrates 6-inch flexible electronic paper, pledges production for next year
If e-paper is ever really going to have a chance against tree-paper it's going to have to get a lot more flexible. We've seen multiple demonstrations of bendable wares from LG and even big daddy E Ink, but AUO is the first to pledge mass production of the stuff (since the Readius went bust), starting in 2010. The company has demonstrated a 6-inch flexible display offering 16 shades of gray and a contrast ratio of 9:1, which sounds terrible but is actually slightly better than the Kindle's 7:1. The company is also showing off a 20-inch non-bendy version that should also hit production sometime next year. When will either get the hammer treatment? That remains to be seen.
Ask Engadget: Best flexible keyboard out there?
We know you've got questions, and if you're brave enough to ask the world for answers, here's the outlet to do so. This week's Ask Engadget question is coming to us from Jeremy, who is desperately searching for a portable and malleable keyboard to take on the road."I love my little computing companion but I often find myself missing a full sized keyboard. I have been looking at several of these portable and flexible keyboards, but I can't seem to make up my mind about which I should buy. I don't want the keyboard to be overly expensive, but I want it to be good quality. Also, how difficult is it to type on these keyboards? Thanks!"To anyone who has been forced to use a cramped netbook keyboard for over a few minutes, you know how dire the situation can get. If you've literally rolled a keyboard into your arsenal, let us know which one made the team and how it's holding up.
LG Display showcases 11.5-inch flexible e-paper
We're still years away from commercialized color variants, but LG Display is proving that bigger ain't really a thang. In fact, it recently showcased an 11.5-inch sheet of flexible e-paper at SID 2009, which could obviously be used in the Kindle XXL. Sadly, few (and by few, we mean none) details were given regarding an eventual launch date, but hey, at least it's around, right?[Via OLED-Display]
Tweets (and whatever else you want) on the desktop with GeekTool
Mat posted a while back about the magic of GeekTool -- it's an app that allows you to run Unix scripts and show logs in a good-looking pane right there on your desktop. Mac OS X Tips recently did a post about how to put your iCal events up there using a script called iCalBuddy, but industrious reader Ben G. has taken this even a step further, and sent along a link to a similar script called twitterbuddy, which -- as you may have guessed -- will send your latest tweets to GeekTool.As a result, he's got the desktop you see above -- both tweets and iCal events sitting in a transparent pane on top of his desktop background. It will require a little Terminal tripping, but it's pretty easy to do. Just install and set up GeekTool the way you like it, and then make sure the buddy scripts are installed. From there, you can create a New Entry in GeekTool, and run whatever commands you want. It's incredibly flexible, too, because it'll put any Terminal commands you can throw at it right there on your desktop. If you're looking to fill in some of that unused Desktop space, give it a look.
Foam-infused Impress DIS.PLAY encourages touching
Move over Surface, we just found our next tabletop display. The aptly named DIS.PLAY beautifully merges the functionality of a touch panel with the allure of dimly-lit scenarios, and the inclusion of memory foam just makes it all the more sweet. In one usage scenario, we're told that objects could be put into motion with sound, and when a certain "shape" is mashed and deformed, the respective audio would bend along with it. Another instance showcased 3D modeling that could be varied by simply twisting the hand or intensifying a finger press. Check the demonstration video after the break, and grab your Tempur-Pedic pillow if you're looking to play along.[Via KanYeWestBlog, thanks DellAppleFan24]
South Korean scientists get one step closer to graphene-based gadgets
Graphene-based gadgets are coming, we just know it. Trouble is, we're still a long, long ways away. That said, a team of South Korean scientists are bringing us ever closer to bendable, durable gizmos by creating a graphene film with a diameter of 10 centimeters by "adopting a conventional chemical vapor deposition (CVD) technique." Furthermore, the crew's development of what's being called the "world's first circuit patterning technology for the graphene film has the potential to replace silicon-based semiconductors." If this is just way too heavy for your mind to digest on a Friday, here's the skinny: the newfangled manufacturing process has, for all intents and purposes, overcome the limitations of graphene, which could not be made large enough for commercial applications in the past. [Image courtesy of ScienceFriday, thanks Agustin]
