Flexible displays will spur electronics innovation

Our electronic gadgets are smaller, lighter, and flatter. But they're still so rigid.

That could soon change, according to Frog Design's Chief Creative Officer Mark Rolston. He tells Mark Wilson at Fast Co. Design that the major inventions in the coming years will come from curved and flexible displays. He explains:

“Curved LCDs [and OLEDs] give us the opportunity to put a computing service not just on our bodies, but on furniture and more household objects,” Rolston says. “Anything with shape--which most of the world has.”

In the era of the curved screen, every single object you know and love has the potential to be reborn without losing its ergonomics. Of course, building a television into your couch might just sound silly, but the fact that it could even be considered demonstrates just how up-in-the-air the world becomes when our most popular digital interface gets a rounded makeover.

In fact, the technology is already here. And close to becoming a consumer reality. Samsung unveiled prototypes for flexible, bendable displays at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year. And now LG is taking orders for its curved OLED TV and promises a new smartphone with a flexible OLED display by the end of the year. What more innovations from this technology could be on the horizon?

For now, here's a sneak peak at the future of displays:

Frog Predicts: Flexible Displays Will Soon Change The World [Fast Co. Design]

And read SmartPlanet's conversation with Rolston from 2011.

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com