The creator of an interactive computer based on an e-paper display is working on a project to bring a non-flat computer display to market in 2012.
Roel Vertegaal, the director of Queen's University Human Media Lab, in Canada, says the display dimensions will be larger than his recent prototype, dubbed the PaperPhone, because of its small display size.
The PaperPhone, which stores books and can be used to make calls, looks, feels and operates like a small sheet of interactive paper and can be bent into a cell phone, flipping the corner to turn pages, or writing on it with a pen. E-Ink provided the e-paper as part of its strategy to work with designers and developers in different industries to explore new concepts for e-paper and prime the market for its technology.
The non-flat computer display Vertegaal is working on will use e-paper.
By developing larger versions of these light flexible computers, which can clearly render documents and allow the user to interact with these digital versions and store changes could change office environments, eradicating the need for paper and printers, believes Vertegaal, who works with both technology developers and industrial designers to help develop his concepts.
'Everything can be stored digitally and you can place these computers on top of each other just like a stack of paper, shuffle, or spread them around the desk, as you would do with real paper', says Vertegaal.
Vertegaal unveiled his PaperPhone on May 10 at 2pm at the Association of Computing Machinery's CHI 2011 (Computer Human Interaction) conference in Vancouver, Canada.
The development team included researchers Byron Lahey and Win Burleson of the Motivational Environments Research Group at Arizona State University (ASU), Audrey Girouard and Aneesh Tarun from the Human Media Lab at Queen's University, Jann Kaminski and Nick Colaneri, director of ASU's Flexible Display Center, and Seth Bishop and Michael McCreary, the VP R&D of E Ink Corporation.
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Queen's University
The Human research lab of Queen's University, Canada
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