Remember the curved phone from LG, the LG G Flex? There’s actually truth to its name. Not only does the back cover ‘heal’ from scratches, the phone itself is actually, honest-to-god flexible. It bends without breaking or damaging the phone. So yes, this device may look silly – but the future is peeking into the present here. Quite amazing.
So, this is the future? Pfft. I want robotic homemakers, space cruisers, flying cars! That was the future that was promised us in the ’80s.. Who cares about scratches when, after a day of work, one has to drive for 2 hours in a giant traffic jam only to find out he needs a shirt ironed?
The future we were promised in the 80s, was dystopian … we either had robotic Arnolds after us, live televised gladiatorial events, corporations were running the world and while people’s brains into robotic cop suits.
A lot of brains have gone missing, but they didn’t turn up in robotic cops sadly.
ED-209 was much cooler anyway.
I have to agree about ED-209.
But stairways (to heaven) are its fate…
Kochise
So except for the robotic Arnold the future is now?
The future will never come because everything cool that gets invented/discovered, gets absorbed by companies who would rather keep us dependent & selling us outdated crap.
Well, they were action/thriller movies. There wouldn’t be much need for action or thrills in a perfect world with awesome robotic penguin butlers.
But that future isn’t interesting.
It would be interesting to live, but not necessarily to watch.
Although, Back to the Future 2’s future was pretty good with flying cars and everything.
At least they got that right.
Watch the Running Man, the show itself looks a lot like the X-factor …. 2 out of 3 …
robotic Arnolds after us
Well, we don’t have T-1000’s, but I’d say the more economical killer drone does the job just as well.
So…you want cheese with that whine?
In the future, your shirt will iron itself! \o/
Edited 2013-11-20 17:59 UTC
In the future there is no physical need for shirts as our environment will irradiate us with comfortably focused heat rays wherever we go. Only modest and technophobic holdouts will be seen wearing such relics.
For self-identity, we’ll all have programmable tattoo ink embedded within our skin that can change our appearance at will and even react to touch, eliminating the need for carrying devices, which is good since we won’t have pockets
Edited 2013-11-20 20:16 UTC
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2316679/The-shirt-we…
biffuz You need to iron shirts?? Really that funny one. Took long enough we are now seeing natural min washing and iron free shirts on the market. There have been iron free shirts for a long time in pure synthetics recent years closer to natural materials. The scary idea is 100 days between washing. I don’t want to consider the disease load that could be on some of these future shirts.
biffuz what I am missing is iron free cargo style pants.
Yes my shirts are up in the 100 dollar USD range. I have iron free dress pants as well. So for me its mostly washing, drying, hanging and folding. Ironing is not part of my life except on the odd times I go fancy.
biffuz a self driving car would be useful. So in traffic jams I could be working on other things.
oiaohm,
“biffuz a self driving car would be useful. So in traffic jams I could be working on other things.”
In the future it would probably be nerve-racking (for someone from the present) to watch AI cars operate at precise margins that would be considered reckless for humans. Ironically the fact that AI cars would need to share the roads with human drivers today makes the AI problem more difficult.
Self driving cars would likely eliminate most causes of accidents (human error). Assuming AI cars didn’t have to share the roads, even bumper to bumper traffic at high speeds could be safe. Not only would it potentially double or triple the capacity of existing roadways (increasing traffic bandwidth), but it would increase fuel efficiencies caused by wind drag and eliminating systematic speed oscillations that are common with human drivers who have difficulty pacing themselves according to traffic.
At the extreme end, theoretically it’s possible to have stop-less intersections where AI cars are spaced out such that they can weave through each other while maintaining speed, again increasing efficiencies. Although at this point you need very high confidence in a car’s reliability for it to be safe.
A failing car could broadcast a danger beacon to alert other cars about it’s condition. A further protection might be to have other cars recognize erratic behavior and/or beacon-less cars and broadcast a 2nd party fault beacon so others are aware of it too. The AI cars could share data with their obstructed peers to increase sensory range & reaction times.
Edited 2013-11-21 04:05 UTC
Personally I’d have to hack my car’s AI so that sometimes it’d agree with not wanting to take me to work, then we could go on an adventure together.
Yes this is a cool trick and a very cool feat of engineering. But what’s the real world advantage of a flexible phone? I can’t think of anything. Perhaps it is more robust to falls by absorbing some of the energy? They should do some drop tests on that.
Edited 2013-11-21 05:21 UTC
I’m guessing the healing and flexibility properties are linked.
Phones get dropped, sat on, banged about. I’ve seen plenty of cracked screens and damaged cases. Usually a phone after a year or 2 looks like it has been in a war. I often accidentally put my phone in the same pocket as my keys.
Actually as phones have gotten bigger screens and more showy, people do seem to take better care of them, but still – robustness is not to be frowned upon. There are a lot of people who’ll see that their clumsy habits won’t result in damage.
Am I the only one who isn’t amazed by a slightly bendable cellphone? The “self-healing” coating is a nice addition, I guess, although the technology itself isn’t anything new.
I guess I expect better gimmicks for/in/on a cellphone at this point.