Scientists Develop Paper Phone

Roel Vertegaal has its way, we all will be using paper tablets and paper phones before this decade ends.

Vertegaal, director of the human media lab, will be showcasing a paper phone prototype at CHI2011 in Vancouver this week.

The device uses a bendable 3.7-inch e-ink touchscreen, which was developed by researchers at Arizona State University. All electronic circuits are printed to the backside of the device. There are also five 2-inch sensors that can detect if a user bends the display at its corners and edges. The display is limited to showing grey-shades at a resolution of up to 150 dpi. According to Vertegaal, the phone is powered by E Ink's Broadsheet Kit, while a notebook that is connected via a cable to the phone is used to store the phone software as well as MP3 playback and reader applications.

"This computer looks, feels and operates like a small sheet of interactive paper," Vertegaal says. "You interact with it by bending it into a cell phone, flipping the corner to turn pages, or writing on it with a pen." It even features gesture recognition capability.

Vertegaal envisions other applications such as tablet-sized screens. "The paperless office is here," Vertegaal stated. "Everything can be stored digitally and you can place these computers on top of each other just like a stack of paper." He added that paper computers do not require power when not in use.

According to Vertegaal, paper computer could be commercially available within five years.