News Tiny computers will bend to browse

From New Scientist:

When computers become too small to be operated by buttons, how will we control them? The only option will be to gently bend them, according to engineers at Sony's Interaction Lab in Tokyo.

They are developing ultra-small information gadgets such as map browsers for tourists, controlled not by a mouse or keypad but by a bit of deft deformation.

Sony envisages a future where people will carry flexible credit-card-sized devices, far smaller than today's PDAs, in their pocket or handbag. "I think we have proved its feasibility with the creation of a working prototype," says Sony researcher Ivan Poupyrev.

The simple prototype is nicknamed Gummi, which means "rubber" in the native German of its inventor Carsten Schwesig. Gummi has all the important features, albeit in crude versions, that future devices will need, says Poupyrev, who worked with Schwesig and designer Eijiro Mori to construct it. It has no stylus, buttons, switches or mouse: information has to be literally twisted out of it.

Full article here

So, you'll have to "wring" every bit of info out of it, hmmm?

 

Given how it's coming along, I would have though Voice Recognition is going to be the way to control devices in the future.

Unfortunately, he macro soft boys reckon engine soft ware lizard up to scraps too walk too it rapid lie.

 

yer... what kna said (literally )

 

The company that i work for is creating a bendible LCD. It could become a touchscreen in fututre I suppose. You could have coke can with a LCD stuck around

 

heh, whats the abttery life gonna be like on something that small?