Technology: ePaper Brings The Future To Your Phone

May 13, 2011 by Hannibal Tabu Leave a Comment

Bend a corner to fast forward through a playlist? Make a minor fold to switch applications? That's the promise of PaperPhone, created by a research group at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.

One research group at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario has taken up that question with their PaperPhone project. The phone consists of an e-ink display on flexible plastic with sensors on the back to detect how the device is being bent. In their study, the researchers asked users to use create custom bending motions to accomplish various tasks common to a smartphone. Users could, for instance, bend a corner up or down to move through tracks on the phone's MP3 player.

The results of the study have been compiled into an academic paper that will be presented tomorrow a the Computer Human Interaction conference. Their work identifies some basic principles about flexible controls — people like easy to understand, easy to execute controls, etc. — though it does not evaluate the usefulness of the interface as a whole. Thankfully, the study's creators have uploaded a video depicting the PaperPhone in action. Check it out below, and decide for yourself if this will be the hot new technology that supplants multitouch.

If you think your iPhone's too heavy, this really could do the trick for you, and make your life much more like Caprica.

[Source: Geekosystem]

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About Hannibal Tabu

Born in Rockford, Illinois; raised in Memphis, Tennessee; matriculated in
Tacoma, Washington and broadcasting live from Los Angeles, Hannibal Tabu is
a writer, a brother, a husband, a misanthrope, a son, an emcee, an uncle, a
poet, a father, a designer, a nephew, a romantic, a storyteller, and by
god, a fan. He spent more than ten years doing the journalist thing for
Vibe, Slave Trade, MTV Online, Rap Pages, America Online, the Los Angeles
Sentinel, Spinnerrack.com, Speak and The Source. Hannibal has worked as a
web designer/producer and graphic artist for American Honda, eHobbies.com,
Quicken.com, Express.com, the California Association of REALTORS, Disney
Channel, NextPlanetOver.com, Toyota Motor Sales, Kaiser Permanente,
California Bank & Trust and many more. As a poet, Hannibal has been
published in The Drumming Between Us, (sic) Vice Verse, Drumvoices Review,
Voices From Leimert Park and other anthologies, as well as being author of
the collection BORN BENEATH AN ANGRY STAR and co-author of FLIGHT MANUAL.
As a novelist, he's written THE CROWN: ASCENSION and FARAWAY (both
available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble & Smashwords) and the upcoming sci fi
political thriller ROGUE NATION. He's the winner of the 2012 Top Cow Talent Hunt, writer of Waso: Will To Power for Stranger Comics, Project: Wildfire for Legends Press, and co-writer of an issue of Watson & Holmes (alongside 2 Guns writer Steven Grant) for New Paradigm Studios. For six years he was the editor-in-chief of the Los Angeles Herald-Dispatch group of newspapers, is currently the co-owner and editor-in-chief of Black geek website Komplicated at the Good
Men Project, and uses his Operative Network website (www.operative.net) to
publish his poetry, market what he's doing, rant at the world and emit
strangled cries for help. In addition to all that, Hannibal collects comic
books, has scores of action figures, DJs private parties, is a Mac OS
zealot, sings and sometimes even hosts karaoke, practices a form of
spirituality based on ancient Egyptian belief, and goes to bed every day,
secretly hoping that half the world will commit suicide in his honor.