Samsung Announces YOUM Flexible Display

You may recall Samsung's amazing concept video released last December for a mobile device consisting entirely of a flexible AMOLED display. The translucent device translated languages on the spot, projected images in 3D and performed other awesome tasks.

While a super-phone like that one may still be a ways off, flexible displays seems to be just right around the corner -- and Samsung has given theirs a name: "YOUM."

According to The Verge, the company filed an application to the US Patent and Trademark Office on March 16 for YOUM's stylized logo, shown below.

LOOK:

In addition, Samsung's YOUM flexible display now has its own page on the Korean Samsung Mobile display website. The site features a diagram (below) demonstrating the differences that exist between Samsung's flexy display, an LCD display, and an OLED display.

Slashgear explains that what could make Samsung's YOUM display thinner, lighter and unbreakable, as the company claims, are its "film-based encapsulation and TFT layers," which replace the usual glass layers featured in LCD and OLED displays and "make them more resilient to damage along with allowing more flexibility in device design."

Samsung first showed off a prototype of the display at CES 2011, which, according to CNET, was 4.5 inches wide, less than .33 mm thick and had a screen resolution of 800 x 480 pixels.

And, just a few days after Nokia released a prototype of its bendable Kinetic Device last October, Samsung Investor Relations VP Robert Yi said the following in a quarterly earnings call: "The flexible display we are looking to introduce sometime in 2012, hopefully the earlier part. The application probably will start from the handset side."

So far it seems Samsung's plans are pretty much on track. Hopefully, we'll be meeting its YOUM displays in person by the end of this year. What do you think of these flexible displays? Would you buy a bendable device? Let us know in the comments!

[via Droid Life]

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Comments

[fernando edo96]

09:22 PM on 09/28/2012

i'm waiting for samsung flexible youm displays prototype to be in the market

[bhardwajweb com]

08:04 PM on 04/18/2012

i like this design.. i really want to buy this... can any body tell me price

Website Designer India

[indecisiveh]

03:03 AM on 04/11/2012

Iron man 2 had some of those. I want it!

[ds9]

02:46 AM on 04/11/2012

Call me skeptical, but didn't the Samsung stock just have a huge crash? Could it be that Samsung saw Google release an entirely vapor-ware video (meaning it's almost entirely conceptual with no physical release that can be verified) and figured that a similar stunt could restore their stock price. There are lots of companies working on products like this so it's entirely possible. I'm just suspicious about the timing. But I still hope it comes out. Some Google/Apple glasses would be fantastic.

[thinkb4uleapII]

03:24 AM on 04/11/2012

Nothing suspicious about it, that's the job of any company's media and investor relations departments.

[loki]

02:18 AM on 04/11/2012

watch apple sue them, saying they were thinking of the idea first.. Apple sues and price fixes to get their way . Its called Modern American Capitalism. Competition is destroyed by use of Government, laws, or as many law suits as you can throw at them.

[Geauterre]

12:59 AM on 04/11/2012

Would very likely expect them to be introduced in various mobile applications, say for example, glasses, automobiles and surgical implants.

[DenverWilliam]

12:38 AM on 04/11/2012

nice screen..what I really like from Samsung are their hard drives...I have 6 and never lost any data.

[mcnote5150]

12:12 AM on 04/11/2012

Great step forward. Innovation is the future and the future is where we'll be. Science and engineering making reality real.

[Rick Eriksen]

11:38 PM on 04/10/2012

Should work well while driving...you'll never see it coming...right from watching the news to dead...not to mention who ever else you kill along the way...it will happen...that is certain...

[emphatico]

11:42 PM on 04/10/2012

ROFLMAO!!

[Geauterre]

01:00 AM on 04/11/2012

Not if the system incorporates fail-safes.

[ChiefLaughsAtSheep]

11:14 PM on 04/10/2012

Everyone should re-watch Minority Report (after reading the original short story by Phillip K. Dick, of course).

[LeftLeanWing]

11:01 PM on 04/10/2012

This will eventually change Fashion and Phone Sex Forever........

[jstjoe]

10:56 PM on 04/10/2012

I threw my money at the screen but nothing happened.

[esosa233]

10:56 PM on 04/10/2012

"Beam me up Spock!"

"But the AMOLED display overheated, let me roll it up and get another one."

[Jebbushnot]

10:47 PM on 04/10/2012

The Koreans can produce amazing cars and amazing prices and now this, yet cannot find enough money to defend themselves with enough Korean soldiers...no worry..we will stay for the next 150 years defending them.

[etiennemacchias]

09:55 PM on 06/10/2012

You do realize it's mandatory in Korea for the men to serve in the military, right?

[RunNewtRun]

10:47 PM on 04/10/2012

I've read that the army has been using foldable screens in the field, they fold like pieces of paper for easy stowage. They are used for maps, not sure if used for anything else in the field, and they were black and white. I read this a couple of years ago no doubt the technology is advancing all the time.