On August 18 we posted a report titled "Samsung Reveals a New Display for a Future Smartphone that could fold in half like a Wallet." Two weeks later the US Patent & Trademark Office published a Samsung patent application revealing some of the technology and methodologies behind foldable next generation devices like a smartphone and/or an e-book.
Samsung Invents a Foldable Event for a Future Smart Device
Samsung's invention generally relates to a method of controlling an event on a future mobile device.
Electronic devices, such as a mobile phone, a Portable Multimedia Player (PMP), and a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), use a display such as a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), a Light Emitting Diode (LED) display, an Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) display, and an Active Matrix OLED (AMOLED), and as a substrate of a general display, a glass substrate is used.
Recently, an electronic newspaper and an electronic book to which a flexible display is applied are now available. Such a flexible display is beneficial in that it may be bent or folded by applying a flexible plastic film to a substrate, and is thus used in many fields.
Samsung's patent FIG. 3 noted above is a flowchart illustrating a method of controlling an event; Samsung's patent FIG. 2B noted below is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a sensor device.
As shown in Samsung's patent FIG. 8A above, when the holding portion #805 is positioned at the center of an upper portion of the mobile device (#100), the grip sensor #141 (of FIG. 2B) detects a touch at that location.
After the grip sensor detects a touch, the deformation detection sensor #142 (of FIG. 2B) may detect deformation of the mobile device. Such a deformation detection sensor may be the tension sensor, the piezoelectric element, and the terrestrial magnetic sensor. When deformation of the mobile device is to be detected with a piezoelectric element, a number of piezoelectric elements may be formed along the edge of the mobile device.
As shown in FIG. 8B, when folding the mobile device at the center, a bending portion #810 is formed, and a stress occurs in the bending portion. Thus, the piezoelectric element measures a stress applied to the bending portion. Further, by measuring a direction of a magnetic field occurring in the mobile device, the terrestrial magnetic sensor may determine a form of the mobile device, whether it's upright or lying down.
After the deformation detection sensor detects deformation of the mobile device, the motion sensor #143 may detect a motion of the mobile device within a predetermined time, for example, two seconds. Further, a motion of the mobile device includes a rotation, acceleration, and a vibration change of the mobile device.
Looking back to November 2013 Kwon Oh-hyeon, vice-chairman and CEO, Samsung Electronics, stated during day two of an analyst meeting that they "would lead innovation by introducing the 'foldable' display in 2015." Foldable displays have been an ongoing theme with Samsung engineering teams for some time now and you could review many other designs and patent reports in our Archives.
Samsung filed their US patent application back in Q1 2014. Considering that this is a patent application, the timing of such a product to market is unknown at this time.
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