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Nokia has unveiled its new Morph concept - showing future mobile devices that could easily bend and stretch to suit different needs.
Morph is a joint nanotechnology project between Nokia and Cambridge University currently on show at New York's Museum of Modern Art.
The MoMA display demonstrates how mobile devices of the future could change into radically different shapes, stretching and flexing at the users' whim - even changing colours.
Other potential plusses that nanotechnology might help deliver to mobile users in the coming years include transparent electronics, self-powering systems and self-cleaning surfaces.
"Developing the Morph concept with Nokia has provided us with a focus that is both artistically inspirational but, more importantly, sets the technology agenda for our joint nanoscience research that will stimulate our future work together," said nanotech expert Professor Mark Welland from the university.
The laboratory has already created devices that can be bent while still working effectively.
"Nokia Research Centre is looking at ways to reinvent the form and function of mobile devices; the Morph concept shows what might be possible," Nokia's chief technology officer Dr. Bob Iannucci added.
Nokia believes that some of the Morph concept's elements could be used in handheld devices within seven years - but warns that will only be at the high end of the consumer electronics spectrum.
Nokia and the University of Cambridge have been working together on the nanotech-meets-mobile projects since March last year.
- NZ HERALD STAFF
