Samsung Patents Foldable Displays and Invisible Buttons

[dgstorm]

Samsung has a couple of new patents that are both intriguing and unsurprising. They just patented foldable displays, which is no surprise, since they are at the forefront of flexible display tech development. The only surprising thing regarding this patent is that they filed one for a foldable LCD as well as an OLED. The circuit board for the LCD is at the outside of each half of the design.

The other patent Samsung is securing is for near-invisible virtual buttons. Here's a quote with a description of this patent,

These are active areas situated near the edge of a touchscreen, which can command the camera app, for instance. The so-called "sensor pads" can apparently be mapped to different functions, too, so imagine a back button that is constantly under the tip of your thumb on the side of the phone, without taking physical space below the screen, or a shutter button that doesn't take away from the scene framing.

It looks like Samsung still has some innovative ideas to try out. What do you folks think?

Source: PhoneArena

 

[squeak]

I still dream of a phone that folds out to have a tablet sized display. I would be fine with it being a flexible display or 2 or 3 individual displays that have a slight seam, but use the technology like used in the Sharp brand phone that has the "bezelless" "edge to edge" display. I would deal with a little extra heft or thickness in order to have a device like that. I'm not a samsung fan, but I'd buy something like the render posted above.

 

[chevycam94]

I'd love to see Apple try to do this 5 years down the road, and advertise it like they came up with it first. Lol. You KNOW they will!

 

[mountainbikermark]

Be still my beating heart. No more ios like home button possible on future Samsung devices so no more bunch of wasted real estate?
Be still.

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[Ollie]

I like the home button.

 

[FoxKat]

The folding is done in the example above with a displaced hinge, which allows the fold to be more of a tubular bend instead. This is why it's so "thick". This is a great idea, but you're going to be carrying something that's as thick as most wallets to get the operation as they show it. The problem with bending polymers is that they DO eventually form stress folds and WILL eventually break. If the bends are limited to within the maximum plasticity of the polymer (i.e. no tighter than perhaps the diameter of a Sharpie), then the polymer won't develop stress fractures and will last through literally tens, if not hundreds of thousands of bends.

 

[droidprincess]

This just seems silly to me.....

sent from my fabulous Note 4♡

 

[UltraDroid]

This just seems silly to me.....

sent from my fabulous Note 4♡

I agree with DP. Just not a real necessary addition to a phone.

Sent from my One+One, using Magic and version 2.4.15 TapaTalk

 

[kodiak799]

I don't think foldable will really ever take off....Rollable, now you're talking!