Sony patents foldup handheld devices

"Origami gadgets

The boffins at Sony’s Tokyo labs are working on a clever way to get bulky electronic devices into small pockets. Their plan is to create handheld computers, phones and portable games consoles that fold up for carrying and then become rigid for use.

The body and screen of folding gadgets would be made from a flexible polymer containing conductive rubber bracing struts filled with a gel of aluminosilicate particles suspended in silicone oil.

When a current is passed through the struts, the particles clump together and harden the gel, making the gadget solid enough to use. Sony has found that it would take very little power to make such a folding device harden, so the drain on its battery should be low.

The company's patent adds that the transition from soft to hard takes just milliseconds. It suggests that the same technique could even be used in a video game controller to make it jolt or change shape in response to on-screen action."

Source: http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/dn9271-invention-origami-gadgets.html

Full patent application: http://tinyurl.com/z8g5v

 

Sounds like really interesting tech, I wonder how long it'll take them to bring it to market.

 

But then the patent can be misinterpreted and Sony can then claim that they invented flip phones and then sues every body...

 

Read the actual patent. :banghead:

 

I did read it.

 

how can they declair they created flip phones when the patent is entirely about "electrorheological fluid device" and not of flipping something close in a clam shell shape (which I would not be suprised if someone else already has a patent on clam shell design).

 

You didn't understand my post. I was just saying that out of thru some technicality they can claim they invented the flip phone or any other current device that barely resembles the actual patent, but I doubt that will ever happen.

 

That's way too far streached because the patent has less to do with foldable devices and more to do with the materials used.

 

Even if the patent did relate to foldable designs, all you'd need to do to invalidate it (as I understand) would be to show prior work, ie any flip phone released beforehand.

 

Ah shit, can anyone say FOLED?

Anyway, if this doesnt works on gadgets, I see a very profitable future in penis implants for this tech, hehe...