By Gemma Simpson, 25 September 2006 12:45
Welcome to the screen you can slot in your pocket. A team of engineers at the University of Cambridge have developed 'morphing materials' which have the ability to retain up to three structures, meaning within five years' time it could be possible to roll-up your laptop screen as easily as a newspaper.
With the right electronics in place, the potential applications of morphing materials are huge. Download a document to your phone and then view it on this A5-sized screen you can fit in your pocket, pull out a full-sized keyboard from your PDA or view your songs on a larger but roll-up ipod screen.
This prototype, made by Dr Keith Seffen, lecturer in structural engineering at the University of Cambridge, would hold the main electronic components along the wooden strips on the vertical sides of the screen, Seffen envisages.
Photo: Gemma Simpson
Comments
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1. Lionel A Smith
OK I suppose until the battery catches fire in your pocket!
2. Marc Wilson
So, the scroll is making a comeback?
Wooden ends, with a flexible material in between?
This would sound familiar to any monk from the middle ages, though they'd no doubt consider the animated text to be the work of Satan.
Gives a whole new meaning to "scroll bars".
I don't know that this will entirely replace the laptop, though- typing on a flat screen is a PITA compared to real keyboard. If they could make "memory " materials that would enable a full-travel keyboard to be rolled up, we could be on to something.