Foldable screen is the next thing for smartphone technology. The direction toward this advance display innovation surfaced after unconfirmed reports hit the internet claiming that Samsung sets to launch a foldable phone-tablet device in 2017. This after the Korean tech giant received overwhelming consumer patronage on its Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge device.
Although it remain mum on whether or not the reports are true, it was Samsung that introduce the foldable screen architecture during the 2013 Consumer Electronic Show (CES). During that event, Samsung talked of the breakthrough of OLED display technology, presented a prototype of a curved-screen smartphone and ultimately showed a teaser of a folding tablet-con-smartphone device.
In the last three years, Samsung successfully embedded two of these three technological innovation to their device. It embedded the OLED technology to all of its smartphone devices and launched the flagship curved-screen Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge. With this development, it would not be impossible if the Korean giant is truly gearing towards the foldable phone technology in 2017.
When asked of the possibility of a foldable smartphone device, Gene Munster agreed of the huge possibility that a company like Samsung could be moving toward such direction considering that bendable glass technology is currently existing. Munster, a senior research analyst for Apple, hinted that the Cupertino tech giant could follow suit if the technology is readily available.
"Companies like Samsung have talked about having foldable phone in the next couple of years. What we know is that technology is in the early stages. It's just a few years away," said Munster in an interview with Business Insider.Over the years, he said researchers play on the idea of bendable glass with the development of fiber optics for data communication as one of the exemplary results. He mentioned on the paper issued by MIT that talked about bendable glass that will eventually become blueprint for foldable glass design.
"We know that from a consumer standpoint, this idea of being able to have something the size of a smartphone that can be unfold open and be the size of a small tablet would be appealing. There seems to be a market force behind it," he said.Let go back down the memory lane and see how Samsung introduced the foldable screen technology during the 2013 CES. Watch here:
