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Nokia Unveils OLED Phone You Control By Bending
jldailey618 writes "Nokia just unveiled an OLED smartphone that is controlled by flexing the device with both hands. By bending corners and pushing the sides inward and outward, the user can scroll, zoom, and select. 'Researchers would not discuss exactly how the processor behind the twisty screen functioned, but they did say that it would be compatible with most current operating systems.'" Reader jones_supa adds a link to The Inquirer (with video), which points out that the twist-based (rather than poke-based) interface means "you can do many basic functions such as scrolling, zooming and answering calls even while wearing mittens."
...and if you disagree with me, you can bite my shiny metal ass!
~Philly
I know, right? Only Apple could ever have thought of touching things on a screen!
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
none of the phones in that PR stunt were flexible, sure the screens were bent but in rigid cases .. that is because while yes you can make OLED screens that are on a flexible substrate, they shit on themselves in a blink of an eye outside of the ivory tower.
...you get your own customers to gradually break their phones so they inevitably have to buy new ones. Smart thinking.
FTA:
The smart phone prototype [..] has the gadget world buzzing with ideas about future products, and how exactly this product would enter the market. It is hard to imagine a phone that requires both your hands’ focus to control
Sure, because one can operate an iphone with just one hand. Since the smartphone, it seems to me that phones that can be operated single-handedly are things of the past.
Its a picture frame concept. Even the booth was named "bendable DEVICE prototype", not bendable smartphone.
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
I actually have it patented. :)
(WO2006134552) FLEXIBLE DISPLAYS AND USER INPUT MEANS THEREFOR.
(Although I think Philips let the patent lapse, and I think they stopped doing anything about it years ago.)
Cool tech but from the video you could do the same by using 4 buttons at the corners.
Today if you bend and break your phone and try to get a warranty replacement they'll tell you to go fish, you're not supposed to do that. The moment you make it part of the interface, there's people who will go way overboard like intense games, kids being too rough with it, have anger management issues and whatever. Even if it's built like a tank that no average person would ever wear out, there's a pretty thick tail of users who'll treat it way more roughly than everybody else. To me it sounds more like support hell than planned obsolescence heaven. If you want that then you should do it on some part you control the life time of, like say the non-replaceable battery running out, the screen fading away, no more software updates, anything you can reasonably control doesn't happen in the warranty period. This would be anything but that.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Good thing people never put their phones in their pockets, where they will twist in an uncontrolled an accidental way.
So why couldn't a lock feature work for a bending UI, as it does for buttons and touchscreens?
When the corners of the device are bent by the user they become rounded, and Apple can sue you!!!
Because the world market for phones doesn't just include the USA.