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Samsung says almost 10 million foldable phones were shipped in 2021 (update)
The company also confirms it's launching new foldable at its next Unpacked event in August.
Samsung's next foldable phone could have a glass display
Samsung teased a new foldable phone concept back in October, and leaked images from earlier this month suggest the next Galaxy Fold may well come with the unique clamshell form the company had hinted at. Now, if new rumors are true, it's pushing the envelope even further and will be making the display -- the foldable display -- out of glass.
Samsung has postponed Galaxy Fold launch events in China
The $2,000 Galaxy Fold is already off to a bumpy start no thanks to some broken review units (ours is fine, by the way), and though the April 26th launch in the US remains unaffected, folks on the other side of the world aren't as lucky. Over the weekend, Samsung announced that it has postponed the press events in Hong Kong and Shanghai, which were originally scheduled for April 23rd and 24th i.e. this coming Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively.
Corning is working on truly foldable Gorilla Glass
Foldable phones arrived in a big way over the last month, but there's a fundamental problem that they haven't quite figured out. The buzzworthy phones introduced at Samsung's Unpacked and MWC aren't truly foldable; they're bendable. The good news is Corning, the company behind Gorilla Glass, is hurrying to come up with a solution.
The problem with the Galaxy Fold
Take a look at the Galaxy Fold's 68 official images on Samsung's press site, and see if you can work out what's missing. Or watch the promotional clip and tell me what you find odd about it. No, I'm not talking about how weird that tiny outside screen is. Instead, it's the thing Samsung went to painstaking lengths to avoid talking about at is "Unpacked" keynote yesterday. It's an issue facing all folding phones, really: the fold gap.
Samsung's foldable phone is officially the 'Galaxy Fold'
To the surprise of absolutely no one who paid attention to Samsung's hype-building for Unpacked, it had more to reveal about its foldable phone. The device is now officially known as the Galaxy Fold, and much like the prototype we saw back in November, we're looking at a 4.6-inch secondary AMOLED display on the outside, followed by a much larger 7.3-inch Infinity Flex AMOLED screen when the device is unfolded.
Daily iPhone App: Fold is the most original iOS puzzler in years
As iPhone puzzle games go, Fold is a bit of a strange duck. It's not particularly flashy or funny or action-packed, but it still manages to be worth a look simply based on its originality. In Fold you are tasked with removing lines of colored blocks from the screen simply by tapping on them, but that description betrays how difficult the game can actually be. It's actually quite challenging to explain exactly how a typical level in Fold plays out. Lines of blocks can be cleared by tapping on one of their ends, causing the line to collapse until just one of the colored blocks in the line remain. The very early levels are exceedingly easy, with just a few lines of blocks and only a couple of taps required to clear them, but as the level count mounts the difficulty follows suit. Before you know it you're tapping the screen dozens of times to clear a single level. A "link" mechanic is introduced fairly early on, where lines of blocks can actually move other colored groups as they collapse, which just serves to make things even more complex. The same goes for blank colored blocks that take on the color of the blocks around them. Ultimately, when a level ends you need just one of each color of block on the screen in order to obtain the gold rating, with lesser feats earning silver and bronze scores. If you perform particularly poorly you'll have to try the level again before proceeding. If this all sounds a bit confusing, there's a good reason for that: You've probably never played a game even remotely like this before. That's a pretty big compliment, especially for a puzzle game on a mobile device. The fact that I can say that the game is dripping with originality is a pretty big feat on its own, and the fact that it retained my interest through dozens and dozens of levels is just icing on the cake. Fold is free to download but charges $.99 to unlock the full game once you've completed a few of the tutorial levels. If you're looking for a unique puzzle experience that will undoubtedly help you pass the time on a lazy afternoon, a short break at work, or the subway, Fold is a fantastic choice.
Scientists make magic auto-origami using ink and light (video)
We've seen nano-origami and robo-origami, but nothing quite as rapid and simple as this. Researchers at North Carolina State University have figured out how to neatly fold plastic using infrared light and an inkjet printer. Deep black lines are printed onto the plastic sheets, which then absorb the light and cause the material to fold without anyone having to touch it. The wider the line, the greater the angle of each fold, so it's possible to set, say, a 90-degree bend for a cube or 120 degrees for a pyramid. What's more, by giving the lines different patterns, folds can be made to work in specific directions, potentially producing the most perfect, most hygienic bento box that's ever contained your lunch. Click past the break to watch the folding unfold.
Samsung's foldable AMOLED display: no creases, even after 100,000 tries
Samsung demoed some fascinating AMOLEDs at this year's CES, including 4.5-inch flexible and 19-inch transparent displays -- neither of which, sadly, will reach the market any time soon. But the innovation train keeps on rolling, and Sammy's Advanced Institute of Technology now has a prototype foldable display, which may or may not be the same reference design spotted at FPD 2008. Its two panels have a closing radius of only 1mm, meaning they practically touch when closed, yet show no visible crease when opened. In fact, the developers performed 100,000 folding-unfolding cycles to test the junction; the negligible 6% decrease in brightness was invisible to the human eye. They used commercially-available silicone rubber to achieve that seamless look, and the prototype featured a protective glass cover which could also function as a touchscreen. Obviously there's a market for touchscreens you can fold up and put in your pocket; here's hoping Samsung can make them available sooner rather than later.
Conceptual 'Fujitsu Lifebook X2' folds into quarters, makes regular notebooks look lame
Being that doomsday and the robot apocalypse are nearing quickly, now seems an appropriate time to gaze into the future of laptop design, right? Well, maybe those anomalies aren't actually around the corner, but you know us -- we always fancy a warm cup of concept tea. Designer Park Hyun Jin over at Yanko recently posted some renders of the Fujitsu Lifebook X2, a laptop-like invention of his fervent imagination that allows for two orientations thanks to its four folds. The design features a full QWERTY keyboard that can be used when the notebook is folded out in full, as well as a half-folded option with an onscreen keyboard. Naturally, we'd love for this concept design to become a reality, but we can't wrap our brains around the seam between the two screens. Well actually, we could probably get used to it. Update: We got a request from the designer to pull this prototype, which was submitted to a competition and leaked. To be nice, we're complying.
Sony, Fujifilm patents are half-camera, half-origami
Point and shoot cameras are tricky to hold still, but the powers that be thought up a crazy fix -- build bending, sliding, transforming grips right into the body of the camera. Sony's patented the idea you see immediately above, which turns the sliding lens cover into a handle using tiny hinges (or perhaps electrorheological fluid, we're not sure). Amazingly enough, the basic concept actually isn't new: Sony itself references a Fujifilm patent whose cover-turned-grip protects the rear LCD instead. Neither look terribly comfortable, but which would you rather choose: a pocketable camera that snaps stable single-handed shots, or one that monopolizes your fingertips? Take a gander at one of Fujifilm's proposed designs after the break.
Lego Mindstorm NXT enlisted for shirt-folding robot
All we have to say about this shirt-folding robot is that it does a better job than we could ever hope to. And for that, we love it. Video is below.
Willow Garage PR2 robot learns to sort socks for $10k prize (video)
We've been following the evolution of the Willow Garage PR2 robot for a little over a year now, watching as it learned to mooch electricity and hustle pool sharks. That, as it turns out, was only the beginning. The robots are now up for general pre-order should anyone want one (priced well into the "if you have to ask" range, surely), and to celebrate that Willow Garage founder Scott Hassan put up $10k to sponsor a video contest of the PR2 robot doing some impressive things. The winner is a video called "Sockification" from a crew at UC Berkeley in which the PR2 shows some... enthusiastic sock sorting skills. You can see that one embedded below, along with our personal favorite: an ode to StrongBad and his lightswitch rave.
Switched On: Stowaway from the PDA era
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. Their screens lacked color and their apps lacked Internet access, but one thing the PDAs of yore had in common with the smartphones of today was text input that couldn't compare to a full-sized keyboard. The challenge, of course, is that full-sized keyboards generally aren't very good traveling companions for pocket-sized devices. In 2000, a startup called ThinkOutside addressed the issue with the first Stowaway keyboard, an ingeniously designed folding keyboard that used the dock connector of Palm PDAs to create a touch-typing experience that fit in your pocket. (Stowaway designer Phil Baker is the author of the book From Concept to Consumer, which explains how ideas become products that get built overseas and ultimately sold back here). ThinkOutside went on to create versions for PocketPCs, infrared (to accommodate incompatible dock connector standards) connections, and then finally Bluetooth. The company was eventually purchased by accessory maker Mobility Electronics, which renamed itself iGo after its flagship power adapter product, and eventually cancelled the Stowaway. At the time, PDA sales were sinking and relatively few handsets supported Bluetooth; most of those that did supported only the profiles needed for headsets and speakerphones, not keyboard input.
Qualcomm's multi-fold mobile device is the future we keep waiting for
Qualcomm isn't typically in the business of producing consumer-facing hardware -- the company prefers to just build the chips that make your devices go "vroom" -- but we've come across a patent application that details just such an idea. The multi-fold mobile device can be seen as either a foldable tablet or an expandable cellphone, but in either case its purpose is clearly to act as a hybrid device that performs both roles. With all least two displays on its three panels, this concept will also automatically reconfigure its UI based on a folding configuration sensor, and Qualcomm suggests you might also use it as a widescreen TV display, an alarm clock, a media player, or a web browser. Click past the break for a couple more suggested use diagrams, and feel free to write to Qualcomm with demands that this be put into production pronto.
Nokia's 3710 fold does 3.2 megapixels on the cheap
A little tip to Nokia: don't bother announcing stuff like this at the exact same time as monsters like the E72, because we assure you that no one's going to care. That's a shame, too, because the 3710 fold is a surprisingly well-equipped phone for the €140 Nokia will be asking for it (about $193) unlocked when it launches in the fourth quarter of the year -- on top of the standard Series 40, AGPS, stereo Bluetooth, FM radio, and concealed external display, you've also got a full 3.2 megapixels of photographic power and 3G. No carrier partners have been announced, but couldn't you totally picture T-Mobile USA wanting in on this in an AWS flavor?
ASUS CEO: Fold / Unfold laptop will cost between $1,000 and $1,500
We had already heard that ASUS' Fold / Unfold laptop concept -- which we originally spotted at CES in January -- would be shipping later this year, but that little fact just got a lot more official. In an interview with TechRadar, ASUS CEO Jerry Shen confessed that this very machine would be shipping in the September to October time frame, and that the end-user price would be "somewhere between $1,000 and $1,500." Just make sure we're not stuck with integrated graphics and we'll be pleased as punch, okay Jerry?[Via Notebook Choice]
ASUS plans to ship Fold / Unfold laptop concept this year!
It may sound like sheer insanity, but it's the right sort of crazy sauce if you ask us. ASUS is planning to make its Fold / Unfold laptop concept into a for-reals product this year, with plans to ship by Q3. That seems pretty accelerated for something we've only seen in concept form, and something with such a new and interesting form factor -- Fold / Unfold's keyboard slides backwards as you open the display to maximize room for keys, trackpad and palm rest (video of the "folding" action is after the break). The concepts we've seen have also been suspiciously thin, so hopefully ASUS can pull this off without compromising this delicious form factor too terribly much. Sadly, that dual-touchscreen concept is further out, there's currently no slated window for commercialization.
Video: ASUS teases with folding Origami laptop concept
As of today, CES 2009 is all ASUS' show. We're impressed with both the hardware on display as well as the custom UIs they've developed to take advantage of their new touchscreen displays while waiting for Windows 7 to arrive. In a nod to the future (the very distant future), ASUS leaves us with a conceptual bow inspired by folded Origami... and Battleship, apparently. Check the video after the break.
Samsung concept phone unfolds to hypnotize onlookers with flexible OLED
Cellphones are caught in this awkward spot where they've got to be small -- like pocketable, doesn't-look-ridiculous-on-your-face small -- and yet somehow big enough to pack an expansive, pretty display that's capable of displaying a lot of stuff at once. That's a paradox that has forced manufacturers into some curious form factors over the years, but ultimately, if you want to somehow cram the desktop viewing experience into a device the size of a pack of cigarettes, you're probably going to need something that projects, rolls, or folds. That's where Samsung's new concept phone shown off at the FPD International show in Yokohama comes into play, opening like a book to reveal a flexible OLED big enough to handle those cute puppy videos that no plain-vanilla, 2.5-inch display can do justice. There's no word on when a so-equipped handset might see production -- but we think it's appropriate that it's being shown off in Japan in all places, if you catch our drift. Follow the break for a video of the display in action.
