Samsung Unveils Youm: Flexible, Bendable OLED Display
By - Source: Samsung
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Smartphone screens can be bendable, rollable and foldable.
Youm
Samsung debuted Youm, its flexible, bendable and foldable OLED display for smartphones during CES 2013.
Stephen Woo, president of Samsung and Brian Berkeley, senior vice president of Samsung Display, showcased the new screen technology during the South Korean electronics giant's keynote.
The bendable OLED technology, named Youm, utilizes thin plastic as opposed to glass, subsequently allowing the display to become bendable, flexible, foldable and an almost unbreakable screen. As well as Berkeley displaying a prototype, Microsoft CTO Eric Rudder also showed a prototype Windows Phone with the flexible screen.
"This new form factor will really begin to change how people interact with their devices, opening up new lifestyle possibilities ... and allow our partners to create a whole new ecosystem of devices," said Berkele.
The Galaxy S4 is rumored to be the first Samsung device to feature an unbreakable screen.
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I think you're referring to when the screens couldn't be bent without permanently damaging them. Look at the videos again carefully and you'll see the screens got damaged.
I doubt the goal is to make a flexible screen, the advantage to this screen is it would never break from dropping the phone.
I think it's more about the screen being able to dissipate the force of impact when dropped so that it doesn't crack, whereas a rigid glass screen absorbs most of the force and cracks.
(I could be wrong about that. I switched from engineering into medicine because I suck at physics, so don't hate me if my explanation above is way off)!
Sometime last year, or maybe even in 2011, I believe nokia had a video that Toms did an article on about a bendable device using a bendable screen prototype. It showed gestures for zooming in and out on photos based on concave and convex bending. Also twisting it certain ways had functionality. The only thing they couldn't put in the device was a batter so they had it hooked up to a power source.
Only themscreen is bendable and not the hardware components. I think they may make something like the Padfone 2. A compact smartphone with a foldable screen that converts that converts the phone into a tablet.
LCDs are rigid, if you want an LCD on the side, you have to add the whole thing including backlight, panel driver and all the other support stuff.
With bendable OLED, you simply use a slightly larger screen and bend the edge. If you were going to use flexible OLED due to shatter-proof properties, bending it for edge display comes at nearly no extra cost nor complexity.
As far as cost goes, I am quite confident OLED will get much cheaper as processes and materials mature. Silkscreening or inkjet-printing OLED panels (the holy grail for OLED manufacturing) would be much cheaper than the high-temperature vapor deposition process used for LCDs.
Clearly you didn't watch the video.
...and neither did you.
Oh really? So almost 10 years ago... hmm. And how many devices use this tech? I'll wait.............
i'd like one of these on my arm
Fo shizzle.