by Todd Wasserman on Mashable
Can your iPad do this?
Perhaps someday. Atmel, which makes hardware used in devices from Samsung, Acer and LG, this week introduced XSense, a flexible touchscreen the company claims can fuel a new wave of lighter, sleeker bendable smartphones and tablets. The video above, aimed at industrial designers, posits that the flexible touchscreens could also be used for “completely new products” such as coffee machines and watches.
According to a press release, the company was able to make this breakthrough via a “proprietary roll-to-roll metal mesh technology.” A rep says the screen is “very bendable” and achieves that flexibility by using polyethylene terephthalate (PET) rather than more common, stiffer materials.
Atmel’s not the only company that believes bendable screens are the future. LG last week announced that it has started mass production of an electronic paper display (EPD) product, which will launch in Europe next month. LG’s EPD is a 6-inch, 1024×768 e-ink plastic screen. It’s 0.7mm thick, it weighs 14g, and LG claims it’s resistant to scratches and drops from up to 1.5 meters. Of course, its biggest claim to fame is its flexibility: LG claims the screen allows bending at a range of 40 degrees from its center.
Nokia also introduced a prototype handheld device last year that lets you bend and twist the screen to complete actions like scrolling and zooming. Samsung has also told analysts it plans to introduce phones with flexible displays sometime this year.
