Samsung Shows Off Bendable Displays

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At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Samsung showed off a new flexible OLED technology that it calls “Youm.” Although Youm-based devices aren’t for sale yet, Samsung demonstrated how the technology could be used to create bendable smartphones and tablets that would be virtually indesctructible.

Michelle Maisto from eWeek reported, “Samsung, as promised, used its time on stage at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show to show off bendable-screen technology that’s being developed with future smartphones, tablets and more in mind. The displays will be marketed under a new brand called ‘Youm,’ which ‘doesn’t just bend the rules of display technologies,’ a delighted Stephen Woo, president of Samsung Device Solutions, told the audience during the show’s final major keynote. ‘It completely rewrites them.'”

Nigam Arora from Forbes noted, “Samsung is not the only one with OLED technology, but Samsung is believed to be the most advanced and closest to bringing flexible, bendable and unbreakable OLED screens in mass produced phones and tablets. There is even a rumor that Galaxy SIV, the upcoming successor to the popular Galaxy SIII, will include an OLED display. We have no independent confirmation of this rumor.”

PCMag’s Chloe Albanesisus added, “In addition, [Samsung’s Brian] Berkeley pulled out a tablet/phablet device with a screen that extended to the edge of the device. If you put it down flat on a table with the cover on it, for example, that edge would still be displayed, so you could see that you had an incoming text or email thanks to that slim, visible strip.”

In separate news, Samsung has apparently cancelled previous plans to release a Windows RT-based tablet in the U.S. CNET’s Shara Tibken wrote, “Microsoft launched Windows RT with grand ambitions only a few months ago, but CNET has learned the operating system is facing yet another setback. This time it’s Samsung having second thoughts about the computer software that runs on cellphone chips. Mike Abary, the Samsung senior vice president who oversees the company’s PC and tablet businesses in the U.S., told CNET today at the Consumer Electronics Show that the Korean electronics giant won’t be launching its Qualcomm-powered Windows RT device in the U.S. It’s unclear what the company’s plans are for the non-U.S. markets.”