A few weeks ago, The Queens University Media Lab released a prototype of a flexible smartphone called ReFlex, so far… nothing special.
Nowadays, almost weekly somewhere on the globe, some unkown company with exotic name is releasing the latest model smartphone.…but the The ReFlex is different!

What immediately grabbed my attention were the techniques used in this prototype – flexible OLED display, bend sensors and haptic feedback.
Translated into human language that means that when you read e-book on the ReFlex you can flip the pages of the book just by bending the screen and the haptic feedback will give you a sensation like you’re flipping a real book.The more you bend the faster the pages flip and vice-versa.The haptic feedback will also give you more precise “eyes-free navigation”.

The researchers expect that the commercial devices will be available within 5 years or maybe sooner…(1)

I think that, if well developed and widely produced, in the future this techniques can have a huge impact not only on how we interact with our smartphone’s but also with other digital devices like for example e-readers like Kindle, iPad or other tablets.

Is this the innovation that will finaly make the difference between digital and analog reading experience smaller or just another fun prototype?
Only time will tell….

Bron: (1) Engadget