Will it bend?

For most end users, a bent screen elicits flashes of horror, since it usually means an unfortunate accident and an unwelcome repair bill.

However, foldable screens are all the rage in the emerging tech space. From smartphones to computers, everyone is dying to know: “will it bend?”

Take Lenovo, for example, a company that is no stranger to creative design, as evidenced by its popular Yoga Book series.

The computer giant was recently granted a patent for a “Device with Foldable Display,” which describes a laptop with a touch-capacitive display that can fold in on itself via an adaptable hinge. The patent also demonstrates how the display and keyboard can be folded into each other. The idea behind the counter-intuitive design is that it allows for seamless transition from the closed orientation to the open orientation via the curvature of the folding region.

As we know by now, patents don’t always come to fruition. Only time will tell what lies around the bend.

Authors: Jaclyn Tilak and Yonca Umur, 2018/2019 Articling Student-at-law