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Screens Get the Bends

The smaller and more powerful devices become, the harder they are to use. Tiny screens just don't cut it when you want to do real work. But if your phone or PDA came with a large roll-out display, you could work in comfort without sacrificing portability. That's where flexible polymers will come in.

What is it? Display manufacturers make traditional LCD screens by sandwiching liquid crystals between layers of glass and then zapping them with electricity. Replacing that glass with plastic makes things a little more malleable. Initially developed by E Ink and Philips, so-called electronic paper compresses organic light-emitting diode (OLED) crystals between very thin layers of polymer, allowing for tremendous flexibility. Unlike conventional LCD screens, such ultrathin displays are completely shatterproof, and can even be rolled up into tight spools. The result is a wide-screen monitor that you can carry in your pocket and use anywhere. Better still, such screens will be cheaper and easier to manufacture than today's flat panels--they'll simply be printed directly onto sheets of plastic.

When is it coming? First-generation flexible displays are already here--they're just not that flexible yet. E Ink's electronic paper can be found in such nonflexible products as the $300 Sony Reader and the $130 Motorola Motofone F3. The first actually rollable displays, created by the labs of Philips' Holland-based spin-off Polymer Vision, will reach the market by 2009: A cell phone from Telecom Italia will carry the world's first Polymer Vision roll-up display. Currently under wraps, the phone (pricing not yet available) is expected to offer a 5-inch, 320-by-240-pixel, monochrome rollable display. By 2010, Polymer Vision expects to market larger color displays with much higher resolution

The first real net phones
Simple wireless calling satisfied users during the first generation of cell phones, but the second generation (2G) made things more interesting with the introduction of SMS messaging and WAP Internet browsing. 2.5G added pictures and video, but at speeds that feel more like dial-up than broadband. (That's the main problem with the iPhone's data service.) With 3G, higher-bandwidth connections have made 2.5G's multimedia capabilities palatable. 4G will be a whole lot cooler.

What is it? The fundamental difference between 4G and 3G is the way in which the networks will be switched. Until now, most phone networks (except for VoIP) have been circuit switched, meaning a dedicated circuit is activated between the callers. This outdated method puts voice calls in a category all their own, distinct from data connections, and prevents cell phones from transmitting voice calls and data simultaneously. 4G networks will be IP switched, just like all the traffic on the Internet. That not only means that you'll be able to talk and text at the same time, but also that your 4G device will be able to do far more on the network than it can today. IP-switched cellular networks will work more as ISPs do, allowing for greater flexibility in running data applications. Just about any device--from a phone to a laptop to a Coke machine--will be able to connect to the network, and you'll be able to do just about anything with it. Another result of this flexibility: Wireless carriers will likely be forced to loosen their iron grip on the services customers can use over their networks, giving everyone more freedom to communicate from the road.

When is it coming? The four major U.S. wireless carriers are just scratching the surface of what their 3G networks can do, and most consumers seem uninterested in more-advanced data streaming. But the underlying technology for 4G networks, WiMax, exists now and is slowly growing in large enterprise networks and telecom companies. WiMax itself is not a cellular technology, however, and before a fourth-gen cellular network can evolve, the industry will need to find a new telecommunications protocol to base it on. As business users increase their demand for high-end wireless data services, cellular carriers will begin to deploy networks and devices that deliver 4G service. We expect the first handsets and data cards to hit the market in 2011.

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