Boffins develop bendy, squishy, foldable display
TV clothing edges closer
Scientists have displayed a screen that can be squashed, stretched and folded like rubber.
The display's made from organic transistors, carbon nanotubes and fluorescent rubber
Developed by Takao Someya, a Professor of Electronic Engineering, and his team from the University of Tokyo, the screen was recently used to make a face-shaped image with changing expressions. They use the same technique to create a spherical screen for highlighting weather information.
Although still only a prototype measuring 1m², the display consists of hundreds of OLEDs connected to organic transistors through a stretchy circuit board made of carbon nanotubes and fluorescent rubber.
Able to stretch to more than twice its original size, the display can even be folded 1000 times without its performance being affected.
The screen's resolution currently only stretches to 256 monochrome pixels, but the team’s reportedly working on increasing the screen’s resolution and colour reproduction.
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COMMENTS
@david S.
"he was shown a proof-of-concept style demonstration of the technology,"
Good grief that sounds like something Chester Carlson would have been demonstrating back in the later 1930s.
To be fair to your dad (who sounds like he declined this business opportunity) it takes a *lot* of imagination to go from that to a photocopier. And a great deal of trust in the team that's going to do the work. My reading on innovations suggests all serious innovations *never* run to anybodies original idea of a development or marketing schedule. While all of them *superficially* resemble existing things (printing is just a sort of mechanical writing) in reality they are the *start* of the art. Time will tell if this one is the tipping point into large scale acceptance.
Camo?
1600x1600 dp(square)i active camouflage? I wonder if they'll milk that particular beast as much as they're mining the flying car?
folded!
wow, you can fold it 1000 times? we should make paper out of it..
WOW
"the display can even be folded 1000 times without its performance being affected."
That's quite a feat being able to fold a screen to less than the Plank length without affecting its performance!
