CES 2013: Samsung Display Flexible Mobile Screen Prototype

Samsung unveiled an innovative concept for a phone that has a two-way flexible screen.

 

Here is one of our picks from CES 2013. Dubbed Youm, it is a prototype device that allows a user to bend the screen back and forth with ease. The demo was part of Samsung keynote speech at CES, where Stephen Woo, president of Samsung's System LSI business, talked about what's next for the consumer electronics giant.

Woo talked about processors and memory, but the biggest oohs and aahs were reserved for the bendable OLED display, as well as a device with a wraparound screen. "Because OLEDs produce their own light, they don't require thick, heavy, power-consuming back lights," said Brian Berkeley, the senior vice president of Samsung's display lab. "Now, thanks to Samsung technology, they can be flexible, too."

Samsung is creating a whole new line of flexible displays, which will be known as Youm. The device is one of his team's flexible OLED prototypes. In addition, Berkeley pulled out a tablet/phablet device with a screen that extended to the edge of the device. If you put it down flat on a table with the cover on it, for example, that edge would still be displayed, so you could see that you had an incoming text or email thanks to that slim, visible strip.

Samsung brought out Eric Rudder, Microsoft's chief technical strategy officer, who showed off a prototype, flexible display running Windows Phone. He pulled up the Games tile and Skype, both of which filled the entire screen.

Samsung is experimenting with new ways to promote their displays at CES. They are paying Associated Press for sponsored tweets on the AP Twitter handle. (Read AP Display Sponsored Tweets On Twitter Handle)
Samsung is not the only firm to display flexible tech here at CES. Plastic Logic teamed up with Intel and the Human Media Lab at Queen's University in Canada to develop several flexible concept designs, like a real-time wristwatch, a companion e-paper accessory for smartphones, and the PaperTab, a flexible tablet.

Meanwhile, Samsung is also getting some attention at its booth for its curved OLED TV, which it says is the first to be developed. While not flexible, the device is rounded at the edge for a more immersive viewing experience.

Technology is evolving at a very fast pace. Cellphones have come a long way in the past one decade. And now it’s time for flexible phones.

By showing off a phone with a flexible screen, Samsung is hinting at a day when we might fold up our large phone or tablet screens as if they were maps. The Korean electronics company provided a glimpse of such a device at a keynote speech Wednesday at the International CES gadget show in Las Vegas. Brian Berkeley, head of Samsung Electronics’s display lab in San Jose, demonstrated a phone that consists of a matchbox-sized hard enclosure, with a paper-thin, flexible colour screen attached to one end.

New world: Flexi-phones like this prototype can be worn on your wrist (PIcture: Samsung)

Screens that can be bended, folded, rolled and worn  could pave the way for a new smartphone era.

Imagine a smartphone that could be worn as a bracelet, bent or unfurled at whim and tucked into the back pocket of your jeans without risk of cracking when you sat down. This is the brave new world of flexible smartphone technology and the first of its type could be on our wrists next year.

‘Flexible displays are one of the top candidates that will take mobile phones to the next level,’ says Gareth Beavis of gadget website Tech Radar. ‘Bendable and less fragile than current options mean we’ll move away from the same black rectangle with rounded corners design that plagues the industry.’

The technology turns mobiles into razor-thin sheets of rollable electronic paper and makes them less susceptible to damage because the screens are made of durable plastic and not glass.
Nokia, Sony and LG are among those who have been working on this for years, although Samsung is expected to beat them to the punch by launching an OLED (organic light emitting diode) screened flexi-phone early next year.

The word from a Samsung spokesman is that the screens will be ‘foldable, rollable, wearable and will allow for a high degree of durability through their use of a plastic substrate that is thinner, lighter and more flexible than conventional LCD technology’.

Bendiness comes at a price, though. Flexible displays already exist in devices such as the Amazon Kindle, but they have cheaper, rigid components behind them to keep costs down.
Meanwhile, concept flexi-phones shown off at previous gadget shows have been no more than expensive vanity projects.

‘We probably won’t see HD flexible displays to rival the likes of the Galaxy S3 or the iPhone 5 any time soon,’ says Beavis.

‘Inherent problems in the manufacturing process mean that while the technology has been around for more than a decade, it still hasn’t reached the point where consumers can buy it. Samsung claims to have solved the issue – and has been one of the most vigorous in its efforts to commercialise the technology – but it could be taking a hit on its profits to be first to market.’

If manufacturing issues can be solved, however, Beavis believes we’re almost certainly on the cusp of a Next Big Thing. And Chris Mills, from Gizmodo UK, agrees.

‘It’s heartening to see that Samsung isn’t being squashed by Apple’s pace of innovation but rather is looking to make flexible phones a reality,’ he says. ‘An actual device we can bend and squash into our skinny jeans would be a definite game-changer for the industry.’

A short history of bendy screens

2005: Philips demonstrates the first prototype of a rollable display

2007: Amazon’s first Kindle features E-Ink electronic paper

2007: Sony shows off a bendable colour OLED display just 0.3mm thick

2009: Orkin Design’s concept laptop promised a 17inch OLED display you could roll like a yoga mat
(below)
2011: Nokia’s Kinetic Device also uses bending and twisting to control it

2011: The concept Samsung Galaxy Skin (left) shows the South Korean firm means business

2012: Samsung demoes a flexible transparent mobile (below) at CES electronics show