A new flexible smartphone design could change the way users interact with their devices.

ReFlex, developed by researchers at Queen's University, uses 'bend sensors' to control app interactions, and simulates physical forces through detailed vibrations.

According to its creators, consumers might be able to get their hands on the bendy smartphone within the next five years.

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A new flexible smartphone design could change the way users interact with their devices. ReFlex, developed by researchers at Queen's University, uses 'bend sensors' to control app interactions, and simulates physical forces through detailed vibrations

THE BENDABLE SMARTPHONE The phone has a high definition 720p LG Display Flexible OLED touchscreen, and uses an Android 4.4 KitKat board mounted on the side. In the back, bend sensors detect the forces applied to the screen, and a voice coil produces tactile feedback through vibrations. This pairs the actions with realistic simulations, as if they were being done to a real object. Bending the phone when influencing a particular action, like pulling a slingshot back in 'Angry Birds,' will give off the related sensation, in this case of a stretching rubber band. Advertisement

If you hold a book open and bend it in the middle, the pages will begin to turn. A deeper bend will flip the pages more quickly.

ReFlex works on a similar principle, explains Roel Vertegaal, director of the Human Media Lab at Queen's University, where the phone was created.

The design combines multitouch with bend input, allowing a user to control actions on the phone by bending it.

This means that a person can flip through pages on a virtual book just by bending the phone, and it will produce feedback that mimics the real sensation.

'This represents a completely new way of physical interaction with flexible smartphones,' said Vertegaal.

'When this smartphone is bent down on the right, pages flip through the fingers from right to left, just like they would in a book. More extreme bends speed up the page flips.

'Users can feel the sensation of the page moving through their fingertips via a detailed vibration of the phone,' Vergegaal said.

'This allows eyes-free navigation, making it easier for users to keep track of where they are in a document.'

The phone has a high definition 720p LG Display Flexible OLED touchscreen, and uses an Android 4.4 KitKat board mounted on the side.

In the back, bend sensors detect the forces applied to the screen, and a voice coil produces tactile feedback through vibrations.

This pairs the actions with realistic simulations, as if they were being done to a real object.

According to the researchers, ReFlex is the first smartphone with full-colour, high resolution, and wireless capabilities to operate in this way.

'This allows for the most accurate physical simulation of interacting with virtual data possible on a smartphone today,' says Dr. Vertegaal.

In the back, bend sensors detect the forces applied to the screen, and a voice coil produces tactile feedback through vibrations. This pairs the actions with realistic simulations, as if they were being done to a real object. A user will feel vibrations that simulate a stretching sling shot when bending the phone to play Angry Birds

'When a user plays the 'Angry Birds,' game with ReFlex, they bend the screen to stretch the sling shot.

'As the rubber band expands, users experience vibrations that simulate those of a real stretching rubber band. When released, the band snaps, sending a jolt through the phone and sending the bird flying across the screen.'

The prototype will be unveiled at the tenth anniversary Conference on Tangible Embedded and Embodied Interaction (TEI) conference in Eindhoven, The Netherlands on February 17, and the researchers say it may hit the market in just five years.



