Bend me, shape me: Flexible phones 'out by 2013'
Samsung's new phones use OLED technology, but the firm is also looking into graphene
Imagine treating your phone like a piece of paper.
Roll it up. Drop it. Squish it in your backpack. Step on it - without any damage.
Researchers are working on just such handsets - razor-thin, paper-like and bendable.
There have already been prototypes, attracting crowds at gadget shows.
But rumours abound that next year will see the launch of the first bendy phone. Numerous companies are working on the technology - LG, Philips, Sharp, Sony and Nokia among them - although reports suggest that South Korean phone manufacturer Samsung will be the first to deliver.
Morph is one of the bendable prototypes Nokia has been working on
Samsung favours smartphones with so-called flexible OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) technology, and is confident that they will be "very popular among consumers worldwide".
Their screens will be "foldable, rollable, wearable and more, [and] will allow for a high degree of durability through their use of a plastic substrate that is thinner, lighter and more flexible than conventional LCD technology," says a Samsung spokesperson.
Paperless world
There are other technologies that could make your smartphone bendy. After all, the concept - creating flexible electronics and assembling them on equally flexible plastic - has been touted since the 1960s, when the first flexible solar cell arrays appeared.
In 2005, Philips demonstrated the first prototype of a rollable display.
And it may not have been obvious, but a couple of years later, flexible technology hit the mainstream.
Amazon's first Kindle e-reader used a plastic non-rigid screen - known as an optical frontplane - to display its images. The only problem was that the components beneath it required the device to be stiff.
Plastic Logic designs displays using E-Ink's technology and its own
This prototype was developed by Japanese company NEC
South Korean firm LG Displays has recently started mass-producing e-ink flexible displays
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20526577
