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PaperPhone: flexible smartphone made out of 'paper' in the offing
by Jaspreet Virk - May 7, 2011 - comments
The phone does not work with buttons. Instead, it has 'Bend Sensors' that detect what a user is trying to do with the device.
Ever imagined a smartphone as thin and lightweight as a sheet of paper? Meet PaperPhone, the future phone that might make current smartphones a thing of the past.
Developed by researchers from the Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada, and E Ink Corporation, PaperPhone will be unveiled on May 10 in Vancouver at the Association of Computing Machinery's CHI 2011.
“This is the future. 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,” cliams PaperPhone Creator Roel Vertegaal, the director of Queen's University Human Media Lab.
PaperPhone has all the features of a smartphone. Users can make and recieve calls, text message, play music, store and share books, etc.
Design and features
Touted as a device that will “make current smartphone obsolete in 5 to 10 years,” the PaperPhone is lightweight and as thin as a sheet of paper.
Made out of a thin film, the device is one-sixth the weight of iPhone, and features 3.7-inch diagonal screen. It's operating system is powered by Google Android.
Like Amazon's Kindle e-reader, the phone uses E-ink display, a technology that mimics appearance of ordinary ink on paper. The displays can be read even under bright sunlight, as they use no backlighting.
Further, PaperPhone has all the features of a smartphone. Users can make and recieve calls, text message, play music, store and share books, etc.
"This is not a maybe. This is a definite. This is what your phone will look like,” claims Vertegaal.
How it works?
The phone does not work with buttons. Instead, it has 'Bend Sensors' that detect what a user is trying to do with the device.
For instance, to make a call, user will just have to squeeze the interactive paper. When it is bend, the sensors understand that you want make a phone call. To end the call, “pop it back into shape.”
Further, bending down both sides of the phone opens application, and dog earing top right corner scrolls the page.
“You interact with it by bending it into a cell phone, flipping the corner to turn pages, or writing on it with a pen,” stated Vertegaal.
The PaperPhone prototype costs between $7,000-$10,000, but the phone is expected to be priced around $100.
Is PaperPhone an iPhone killer?
Though the device is still in development stage, and will take 10 years to enter the mainstream, the researchers believe PaperPhone will outflank Apple's iPhone.
"This is definitely going to replace the iPhone, there's no doubt about that," claims Vertegaal.
But market experts have a different take. They believe that it won't be easy for PaperPhone to carve a niche for itself in the market.
Greg Harper, president of technology consulting firm HarperVision, stated that PaperPhone is not the first device with flexible digital display. In fact, many tech companies are working on such devices.
"I don't think it's the future of [smartphones], but I think it will be a component of it," added Harper.