Polyera announces truly flexible display

Flexible technology development company Polyera has announced, via press release, that it has succeeded in creating a truly bendable electronic display and will be showcasing it soon, as part of an arm band it has also developed called the Wove Band.

As part of the announcement, the company said it plans to offer the technology to developers as soon as next month, with units expected to be delivered to select participating partners in December. They also said they plan to deliver the Wove Band to customers sometime in the middle of next year. The Wove Band is made possible, the company states, due to technology it has developed (over the course of ten years) that it calls Polyera Digital Fabric Technology which they say, allows for the entire screen to bend, meaning both the front and the thin-film plastic based electronics behind it.

Many companies have been working on developing a truly flexible screen, including some of the biggest names in the business, such as Apple and Samsung, but thus far, no one has been able to figure out a way to create such a product that can be mass produced for a reasonable price. The folks at Polyera claim they have succeeded by combining their own technology with E Ink flexible electronic ink film. At this time, it is not clear how much capability the screens will have, i.e. whether they could be used as a form of smart watch, or whether they will only work as a dedicated product, one capable of displaying the time, for example, the temperature, an email or a picture or a changeable pattern. In any case, the goal has always been to develop an electronic displayable material that could be bent, rolled up and put in the pocket, or even sewn into material to allow for the creation of a host of products thus far seen only in sci-fi movies.

Devices based on the new screen technology would require very little power, as E-ink does not require any power at all to remain in an on state. Thus, an image, once loaded, could be displayed indefinitely without draining a battery. Polyera says that they believe other devices will be created by other companies using their new technology, leading to a wide variety of newly inspired products for consumers.

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