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First Touch-Screen, Bendable E-Paper Developed
Al writes "The first touch-screen flexible e-paper has been developed by a team from Arizona State University and E-Ink (the company that makes the technology for Amazon's Kindle and Sony's Reader). Jann Kaminski and colleagues at ASU's Flexible Display Center say the main challenge is that most touch-screen technologies do not respond well to being flexed. So they used an inductive screen, which relies on a magnetized styluses to induce a field in a sensing layer at the back of the display. The first adopters for the technology are likely to be the US Army. Watch a video of the device being tested."
And just think of how easy it would be for Big Brother to update the truth if there weren't all those pesky hard copies laying around!
I love Slashdot.
Aricle: "Berkley finds cure for cancer."
Slashdot: "What the hell can they use that for?"
Are you telling me that you have such narrow, blinded, imagination-less vision that you can't see the use for something as thin and flexible as paper, but with the functionality of a touch-screen laptop? How about, I dunno, an e-Book that's as easy to transport and hold as a newspaper? Hell, with modern wireless technology, you could have your screen/input device sitting on the table with you at breakfast while the laptop "base" is over by the outlet. Carry the newspaper screen/input device around with you on the train and bus wirelessly connected to a PDA around your belt.
Think of the possibilities!
The applications people dream about are things like:
-Robustness. For field work a display that is inherently bendable is potentially less likely to break.
-Displays that are more compact/portable, since they can be folded up or rolled-up. E.g. a PDA with a small screen for quick work but a larger roll-out display for reading a book.
-Being able to read computer-text in a format roughly like a newspaper (thin, light, bendable, etc.). In principle not more useful that a rigid and flat e-book reader, but it is a format some people may prefer.
-Large format displays. E.g. instead of having a projector and unrolling a white screen, you just unroll a bendable display screen (with all the usual advantages of monitor technology: e.g. you can't block the beam, brighter display with better contrast, etc.). Or being able to unfold a screen (like a map) and put it on a table for impromptu collaboration (or display data in the field).
-Deformable displays for shifting surfaces. E.g. imagine a touchscreen that had a keyboard 'hidden' behind it. When required the keys press up (bending the display) so you can use it as a normal keyboard. With a switch the keys depress and lock, giving you a flat touchscreen.
-The ability to put touchscreens onto non-planar surfaces. Like having a screen that follows the contour of the dash in your car. Or having screens plastered onto columns in malls (for a mall directory, and advertising, probably...).
-The ability to put touchscreens anywhere: wallpapering a room, the inside surface of a tent, clothes (maybe just for novelty or maybe actually useful: e.g. a computer interface built into army uniforms), the surface of your desk, etc.
Those are just a few. If you can't think of any applications for a bendable touchscreen, you're not trying very hard!
It sure would help to be flexible. Much easier to transport a 100" display that rolls up than a 100" LCD screen.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
You8r missinf the bigges and most important use:
Gaming!
Now I can have my table sized roll out, and just have the map display on it, with monsters as they come into sight!
SA well as be able to play every parker brothers game with just one board.
Think man, THINK!
Won't anybody think of the gamers?
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