Science fiction is getting closer to fact.
Samsung has made no secret of its intentions to make a bendable phone—it’s been working on the technology for years—and its first prototype unveiled today is bulky, to say the least.
The South Korean electronics giant announced a new foldable concept phone, the Infinity Flex Display, today (Nov. 7) at its developer conference in San Francisco. The prototype looks like a chunky smartphone, which can be unfolded like a book to access a larger 7.3-inch display inside to be used like a tablet. This isn’t a fully-fledged device, but rather an first-look at what Samsung can now do.
Despite its early stages of development, support for “foldables” was also announced earlier today at the Android Developer’s Summit in Mountain View, California. The Google event jumped the gun on its blog post, though, saying that Samsung had previewed its new foldable phone design before the Samsung event had started.
Samsung says its device will come soon, and Google says to expect similar designs to come from other manufacturers.