LG and Samsung like to get creative with the displays they manufacture, and both South Korean companies have been putting a lot of focus on flexible displays recently. Their focus on flexible displays will be especially apparent at CES 2016 this week, where LG is planning to show off an 18-inch prototype display that can be rolled up like a newspaper. While the company still hasn’t decided where it wants to use this display technology, it’s hinted at the possibility of using it inside vehicles, where a large screen would need to bend in order to fit. Another possibility would be as a regular television that you wouldn’t need to bother setting up a mount for, just use some tape and stick it on the wall.
The future-phone that you can roll up and pop into your back pocket creeps a little closer to reality as the annual gadget show bonanza, CES 2016, kicks off in Las Vegas this week. LG has landed an early hit with an 18-inch prototype flexible screen that can be rolled up as tightly as a newspaper. A perfect match for folding smartphones or tablets, or more adventurous gadget form factors (a fly swatter that doubles up as a TV, anyone?), it’s the latest step in LG Display’s push to make OLED its class-leading screen tech. Though Sony, Sharp and Samsung have all dabbled in OLED, it’s LG that remains most committed to the visually-impressive but slow-starting display format. Until now, the technology (first spotted in the wild back last summer) has only been shown off behind closed doors. But with LG parading it in front of the world’s media at the tradeshow, it suggests that the prototype is nearly ready for its own headline placement in a purchasable consumer device. While LG has yet to settle on a product with which to launch its rollable OLED, it’s hinting already at the potential for in-car screens curving around an automobile’s confined spaces, and has also teased a 55-inch “paper-thin” television that houses all its electronics in an external box. Who needs a wall mount when you’ve got some double sided sticky tape? Definitely one to keep an eye out for as CES kicks into full gear later this week.
