Shape-Changing Smartphone Morphs When Called

Researchers from the Human Media Lab at Canada's Queen's University have developed a new smartphone, called MorePhone, that can change its shape to give users a silent but visual cue of an incoming phone call, text message, or email. The phone is made of a thin, flexible electrophoretic display. Shape memory alloy wires are sandwiched underneath the display, and contract when the phone notifies the user. This allows the phone to either curl either its entire body, or up to three individual corners. Each corner can be tailored to convey a particular message - users can set one corner to bend when receiving a text message, and another when receiving an email.

Transcript

00:00:04 when in silent mode users often miss the vibration notification of their phones morone is a shape-changing smartphone that deforms upon a call to provide an additional Visual and haptic alert to its user Mor phone consists of a flexible display with a layer of shape memory wires activating these wires allows either the corners or the entire body of

00:00:23 the phone to curl here we see Mor phone deforming the top right corner when receiving a text message the user dismisses the alert by touching the tip of the display