How "future tech" changed from being out there to we could have this now...

In Space 1999 it was hand held videophones - which we have (sort of) today

and the techology has been around for at least 7 years.

In Earth Final conflict we have rollable displays and a earth wide accessible 'net'.

IIRC We have rollable display tech now.

Take a 10 or 12 inch display and enable only that part that is unscrolled.

Add the techology from say a top end EEE and you have the perfect

pocket phone/computer etc.

OK adding touch screen is going to be tough but cell based CD or simialr should

be possible even on a rollable screen and even the EFC tech had a frame to

ensure the unroll was flat and tensioned.

Take THAT Apple!

I wonder if it will leave a nasty crease in the middle of the screen and how log before eventually wear and tear would make it unusable. Paris because she knows all about used goods.

just creases me up.

ME WANT ONE NOW :-)

Im assuming if it can fold once it can fold twice. So like the snapfax style wallet books, you could open up a 12inch square screen. OLED is low on power. Samsung better get this to market quick... for my sake of course.

Nothing on Paris tho, she has been bendy for years. Only last night, did i see her ankles round her ears.

Not surprising really as Sci Fi is responsible for many inventions that are taken for granted today. Despite that many people still look down on the genre - usually the people with no imagination whatsoever.

It needs one of those machines from IKEA that test the wear'n'tear of bits of furniture. As long as it's not built to the same quality as IKEA stuff (otherwise two folds may be too much to ask!)

Just broke my phone trying just that!

Mine is the coat that *does* bend!

Why did the person recording stay there for so long looking at it while it was open, after it did it's close-and-open routine? I stupidly kept watching, thinking something else MUST happen since there was over a minute left. But no, nothing. I felt like I was part of a "Pinky and the Brain" episode, where Brain gets everyone in the world to watch something so that he can brainwash them. Then again, maybe he already did that with "reality" shows... Zort! Poit! Narf!

So we can see a display that can be folded gently at room temperature through a few cycles at a trade show... There are a significant number of hurdles to making a shippable product that can be flipped open at freezing and hot temperatures, 150-200 times per day for a 5 year product life

200 times per day? Good god, man - that's once every 6 minutes if you're up 18 hours! You must really be in demand...

I for one welcome our handy pocket sized but unfolding to 7 foot tall monster laser sword weilding overlords.

I suspect it's more likely that this is two screens which operate right to the very edge along the "fold" line. But that's quite an achievement given the usual issues with encapsulating OLED displays. (They use a lithium and/or calcium cathode layer, which obviously doesn't last long with any water/oxygen penetration). You could of course use a light-piping layer to shift the apparent image over an underlying seal-border, but this would add thickness undesired in a slimline consumer product.