New technology continues to grow over time. With that comes new gadgets and devices to view content. Since the birth of the PDA technology businesses, companies and corporations have been trying to develop devices that do several functions. The new iPhone is a great example of an "all-in-one device." Recently, e-ink and foldable displays have been becoming popular. It's becoming more realistic to mass-produce devices that utilize these technologies.
Polymer Vision recently just announced a "Cellular Book" with a rollable display. Polymer Vision is a company who spun off of Phillips. They want to commercialize their foldable display device this year, 2007. The device will first be offered by Telecom Italia, in Italy.
The device appears to be more of a book than a cell phone. The device comes with a rollable, foldable display that can be extended to a full five inches. The display wraps in the device to be "smaller than a mobile phone," so the company says.
The "cellular" part of the device is the fact it will be able to connect to the Internet and view content with 16 levels of gray. It also includes e-mail, RSS, and obviously e-books, which can be purchased through Telecom's network. The device will also play music and other digital audio such as podcasts. It comes with 4 Gigabytes of storage.
There is no word on release date and pricing information.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/05/polymer-vision-unveils-cellular-book-with-rollable-display