Scientists in Canada have designed and developed the world’s first flexible smartphone that combines multitouch with bend input that provides a novel physical tactile feedback to its users.
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Haptic technology positioned on the back of the display allows the phone to simulate physical forces when users interact with their apps.
It’s just a prototype for now but it sports a 720p LG Display Flexible OLED touchscreen and runs Android 4.4 KitKat software.
So this now means a person can flip through pages of a virtual book just by bending the phone, and it will mimic the real sensation. When a user plays the “Angry Birds” game with ReFlex, they bend the screen to stretch the sling shot.
“When released, the band snaps, sending a jolt through the phone and sending the bird flying across the screen”, said Vertegaal.
Revealed by the Queen’s University Human Media Lab, the ReFlex will rely on the flexible screen so that it can initiate select features.
Dr. Vertegaal thinks bendable, flexible smartphones will be in the hands of consumers within five years.
The researchers will unveil the ReFlex prototype on the tenth anniversary Conference on Tangible Embedded and Embodied Interaction (TEI) – world’s premier convention on tangible human-pc interplay – in Eindhoven, The Netherlands on February 17.
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Flexible smartphones have been in testing behind closed doors for a while, but the emergence of a fully-malleable prototype handset suggests they’re close to becoming a thing, Digital Spy said. “This allows eyes-free navigation, making it easier for users to keep track of where they are in a document”. In a video uploaded by the research team at Queen’s University Human Media Lab it shows a user flicking through the pages of a comic book or catapulting an Angry Bird simply by bending the device. “More excessive bends velocity up the web page flips”, Vertegaal defined, including: “Users can really feel the feeling of the web page shifting via their fingertips via an in depth vibration of the telephone”.
