‘Paper phone’ e-ink prototype to be presented next week

This thin and flexible phone is no concept, though it could be up to a decade away from the shops.

The prototype, dubbed PaperPhone, uses a digital ink display similar to that found in Amazon’s Kindle. The difference here is that the display also has a degree of flexibility.

“This computer looks, feels and operates like a small sheet of interactive paper,” said lead creator Roel Vertegaal, the director of Queen’s University Human Media Lab.

“Paper is basically what the Kindle is trying to replace, but paper is flexible,” said Audrey Girouard, a student at Queens. Similar to turning pages of a paper book, you can also turn ‘pages’ on this prototype by bending its corner.

“We have software that collects the values given by the bend sensors (location and direction) and then we convert that into gestures,” Girouard told InnovationNewsDaily.

This means other gestures, like the page-turning function, can be assigned to the phone.

The 3.7-inch prototype diagonal e-ink display could scroll through phone contacts, make calls, select songs and perform various other tasks. Take a look at the video below. Design may need some work.

 

The PaperPhone will be shown at on May 10 at a Computer Human Interaction conference in Vancouver on 10 May 2011.

Source: InnovationNewsDaily, via: MSNBC