PaperPhone heralds era of flexible technology

The iPhone, iPad and other smartphones could soon become the technological equivalents of tablets of stone after researchers in the US and Canada produced a prototype smartphone made of 'electronic paper', which can be controlled by being bent and twisted.
 
The flexible PaperPhone has been developed by teams at Queen's University in Kingston, Canada, Arizona State University, USA, and researchers from the E-Ink Corporation, which provides the displays for e-readers like the Kindle.
 
Although it has already made its debut on YouTube, the computer will be formally unveiled by Roel Vertegaal, director of the Human Media Lab at Queen's at a conference on computer and human interaction tomorrow. The device can be used to store data like music and books and to make phonecalls.
 
In the video, posted on YouTube, a scientist demonstrates how the technology works and scrolls through different menus by bending the PaperPhone, which is just a couple of millimetres thick, in different directions. The video was watched more than a million times in the run up to Vertegaal's presentation.
 
Vertegaal said: "Everything is going to look and feel like this within five years. This computer looks, feels and operates like a small sheet of interactive paper. You interact with it by bending it into a cell phone, flipping the corner to turn pages, or writing on it with a pen."
 
Ironically Vertegaal predicts that the PaperPhone could lead to the creation of a completely paperless office. "You can place these computers on top of each other just like a stack of paper, or throw them around the desk," he said.
 
Some observers are excited about the new technology, which could lead to phones that can be slid into wallets or electronic newspapers that can be rolled up like traditional ones, but others raise practical concern - like how to avoid making unwanted phonecalls if the device is accidentally bent. ·