A Mobile Device That’s Literally Ahead of the Curve

ReFlex phones have foldable OLED displays from LG

By The Editors
February 18, 2016 9:00 am

Things we love folded:

Pizza slices. Televisions. The fold-ins of Al Jaffe for Mad Magazine.

The list is about to get expanded by one.

It’s called the ReFlex, and it’s a completely flexible, foldable smartphone built to improve the way users navigate the digital world.

Brought to you by researchers from the Human Media Lab at Queen’s University, the ReFlex boasts a six-inch, 720p display and is equipped with LG’s OLED (organic light-emitting diode) technology that’s mounted on a flexible substrate that extends to the left and right.

By bending the phone, users can flip pages in a document the same way they would in a book or “experience physical tactile feedback” when interacting with an app or game.

ReFlex: Revolutionary flexible smartphone allows users to feel the buzz by bending their apps. 1:03

“Users can feel the sensation of the page moving through their fingertips via a detailed vibration of the phone,” says Human Media Lab director Roel Vertegaal. “This allows eyes-free navigation, making it easier for users to keep track of where they are in a document.”

Although still in the prototype phase, the phones may come to market in as few as five years.

We may be making calls with our thoughts by then, but chances are we’ll still enjoy folding stuff.

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