ReFlex the world's first flexible Smartphone developed by Canadian Researchers

Scientists claim to have developed the world’s first wireless flexible smartphone that allows users to feel the buzz by bending phone apps. The team, working in the Human Media Lab at Queen's University in Kingston, Canada, have called their device the ReFlex which is seriously impressive.

The technology, which is still in the prototype stage, could one day make shattered screens and permanently bent phones a thing of the past if it hits the market. Equipped with a high-definition OLED screen, the display actually looks quite good, with sharp images and bright, vibrant colours.

The full-colour, high-resolution smartphone, named ReFlex, combines multitouch with bend input and allows users to experience physical tactile feedback when interacting with their apps through bend gestures. Other than making the phone a little more resistant to drops, the bendable body offers some interesting new methods of navigating.

Rather than swiping the screen to turn pages when reading an ebook, as they would with a regular smartphone, the user can just bend the phone and flip through as many pages as they need to, in the same way they would with a regular book. The team behind the phone believe the technology could reach consumers within a few years.

A vibrating unit embedded in the phone also provides feedback, so that users can feel the 'pages' flipping past their fingers as they move through the book. It also has applications in gaming, too like when playing Angry Birds, the vibration changes as the catapult pulls back, giving the sensation of an actual rubbing band stretching out and snapping forward.

Combined with the passive force feedback felt when bending the display, this allows for a highly realistic simulation of physical forces when interacting with virtual objects.

Flexible smartphones have been unveiled before from manufacturers like Nokia and Samsung that have made a few experimental models, but they've mostly either been wired devices or just promotional concepts. The LG G Flex bendable smartphone was actually released to the public in 2013, but it couldn't bend anywhere near as much as the ReFlex.

ReFlex is based on a high definition 720p LG Display Flexible OLED touch screen powered by an Android 4.4 KitKat board mounted to the side of the display. By making their device completely wireless, full-colour, high resolution and truly flexible, the Queen's University team might just have achieved a first in mobile technology.

It's obviously not going to be hitting the market soon, but Roel Vertegaal, head of the Human Media Lab at Queen's University in Kingston, Canada believes to see the technology reach consumers within a few years.

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( Sources and Citation : The bendable phone that could make smashed screens a thing of the past Human Media Lab )