News - PaperPhone will obsolete the smartphone in five years, claims inventor

[BobF64]

Screw paper phones, i just want ones like on Earth Final Conflict, only without the video rubbish.

[TooNice]

@Saracen: Indeed, that's why I changed my view to the technology being more fitting for ebooks than smartphones. Perhaps they are trying to sell on one of the current buzzword (smartphones, and more recently tablets are getting a lot more attention than e-books)?

[Nelviticus]

Obsolete isn't a verb!

Yes it is. It might not be a common usage, but it absolutely is a verb.

Well ... well, it shouldn't be. I'm going to write to the Queen and get it de-verbed.

[aidanjt]

Eh?! Are you mad?! These are two of the greatest inventions humankind has ever accomplished! Antiquated, possibly, but still great.

Except for the bit where it's slow, error prone, difficult and messy to correct mistakes, gets ink all over your fingers, and leaves you with epic cramp after writing a few paragraphs. Yes, is awesome.

But I think I'll stick with my keyboard, none the less.

[Scott B]

Obsolete isn't a verb! Using it that way will thick you.

So be it

[Jay]

oh I have a use!!

Have you ever been in the toilet and had no toilet roll??

[nicch]

The article does seem to suggest features more akin to an e-book reader than smartphone and looks like another development in the epaper world. It could well be the replacement for ebook readers, tablet/netbook/laptop pc's. Is within 5 years too small a time scale? ebooks are on the rise, and current adverts show people leaving kindle's round in drawers, so something that you could treat like a magazine you buy would have the demand. that doesn't say it will obsolete the smartphone though.

If you look at all the ideas on device convergence and also ubiquitous computing then having a flexible document device for ebooks, newspapers, etc as well as editing documents and web browsing is probably expected, as is connecting seamlessly with your smartphone. I can see the "paperphone" more a document device that could tell your phone its currently been held/in-use by the owner and pops up a notification what a call/text comes in so that you can take it on your "paperphone" without having to put it down and take your phone out to answer the call.

I could see the device being developed into a wearable phone. There are many concept designs of wrist/forearm phones that are made of a flexible material that wrap around the arm, and something like that could be seen as preferable to a device you stick in your pocket.

Of course the uses that inventors expect their devices to be used for may not be what the public wants to use them for, and the take-up/appeal by the public sometimes goes against what is predicted.

[Lucio]

Where I see this technology having potential is as a screen / interface device for a more powerful computer. For example, being able to carry a lightweight, flexible monitor that you can easily attach to most surfaces that both shows your presentation, but also acts as the tools with which to interact with it.

At the moment a projector is about the only imaging device that we have that takes up less space the the size of the image it displays, if this can be made flexible enough to fold or roll up, it'd overcome that problem. So for example, we could get a smartphone with a 10" screen, without having to worry about fitting it into our pocket.