A foldable display in your future?

One of the most perplexing issues for designers of mobile computing devices is how big to make the screen. On the one hand, we want it to be as big as possible so it can contain more information, and on the other hand we want it to be as small as possible so it's easy to carry. Some have suggested that the solution is to create a screen as thin as a piece of paper that you can fold up and put in your pocket, or roll into a tube. Now, researchers at the University of Cincinnati's Novel Devices Lab have demonstrated that it's possible to do just that! In a breakthrough "proof of concept" experiment, using a technology called "electrofluidic imaging film," they've demonstrated that such thin film displays can indeed work. In addition to the advantage of being easy to carry, they can display sharp colors even in bright sunlight, and require very low power and no heavy batteries, since they get their energy directly from ambient light. Of course, there are many issues still to resolve, and it will probably be years before these devices are commercially available. But it's a big step forward.