[the-facts-machine] Your next smartphone could unfold as easily as a napkin

From: Steve <pipeguy920@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <the-facts-machine@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 1 Jul 2018 14:08:46 -0400

BlankFYI

Your next smartphone could unfold as easily as a napkin . Geoffrey A. Fowler.

Your next smartphone might just throw you a curve. Picture this: You pull
your phone out of your pocket and unfold it like a napkin into a tablet. You
press your finger on the screen, and it unlocks. You switch to the camera
app, and a spiderlike array of lenses shoot simultaneously to capture one giant
photo. These are all things I've seen phones do - some in prototype form,
others in models you can get only in China. Analysts in Korea say we might see
a
folding "Galaxy X" phone from Samsung next year. When I look into my crystal
ball, I'm convinced we're on the cusp of the most significant changes to the
design and functionality of smartphones since they first arrived. The shake-up
couldn't come soon enough. You probably couldn't live without your phone but
feel as excited about it as you do running water. And the water company doesn't
hold an event every year to hype slimmer faucets. From the front, the iPhone 8
is pretty much indistinguishable from the iPhone 6 that came out nearly
four years ago. Americans are holding on to old phones longer than ever - 25.8
months, according to the most recent research from Kantar Worldpanel. The
tech industry has been doubling down on software and artificial intelligence
capabilities, which still hold huge potential. But there's a lot to be done
on improving phone hardware, too, the No. 1 reason most people upgrade.
Longtime
tech analyst and futurist Tim Bajarin, of Creative Strategies, told me
he's excited by what he sees coming. "When we turn the corner on the next
decade, that is when we will start to see a revolution in everything from
flexible
displays to glasses," he said. So I went on a hunt for new technologies in
China
(where phone makers are more creative), among start-ups and at industry
conferences where the likes of Samsung and Apple find new components. I looked
for ideas that could make phones simpler to use, easier to carry and better
for watching video and doing work. And, of course, I looked for anything that
might make batteries last long enough to bring an end to the contact sport
of hunting for an airport outlet. Here are five ideas that will, at the very
least, make your next phone interesting. Or if not your very next phone, then
the one after that. Fingerprint scanners go inside The big idea: You can have
it
all: a phone that's entirely screen on front and a fingerprint scanner
still right where it belongs. When full-screen phones came into fashion, some
Android phones moved this key function to the back. Apple killed the home
button entirely with its full-screen iPhone X, opting for face-scanning sensors
that some (including yours truly) find to fail just enough to be annoying.
Recent breakthroughs let phone makers embed the fingerprint reader inside the
screen. Just press your finger over the right area of the screen - indicated
by a thumbprint image - and the phone unlocks. Component maker Synaptics
figured
out how to take a picture of fingers by looking between the phone's pixels;
Qualcomm created an ultrasonic sensor capable of scanning not only though
screens but also metal . . . and even underwater. So far, the tech has made its
way into phones from Chinese makers Vivo and Xiaomi. Before you get too
excited:
The in-screen reader was a bit more finicky than traditional scanners
when I tested it on the Vivo X21, one of the first phones to offer it. And,
Apple people, don't hold your breath that this will ever come to an iPhone.
Apple has said it thinks Face ID is the future, and it doesn't often reverse
course. When will I get it? In the United States, I think we'll see it on
a phone in the next year. The Korean tech media report that Samsung "confirmed"
to industry partners it would use an in-screen scanner in its Galaxy S10,
though no executives have said so to me. Cameras sprout more lenses The big
idea: Phone snaps could soon compete in quality with big-honking-lens cameras.
How? By covering the back of the phone with a bunch of small lenses that shoot
simultaneously - and then stitch it into one big photo. We've already seen
a version of this in Apple and Samsung phones with two lenses. The second helps
with zoom shots and measuring depth to create photos with artistically
blurry backgrounds. The P21 Pro flagship from Huawei includes three lenses: one
color, one monochrome (to help with depth and low-light situations) and
one 3x zoom. A camera maker called Light has taken this idea furthest. It
showed
me concept and working prototype phones with between five and nine lenses
- yes, nine - on the back. It says its phone design is capable of capturing
64-megapixel shots, better low-light performance and sophisticated depth
effects.
Before you get too excited: All those lenses - and the processor power required
to stitch together all those individual shots - don't come cheap. A stand-alone
camera from Light with 16 lenses costs $1,950. When will I get it? Light, which
counts Foxconn as an investor, says a smartphone featuring its multi-lens
array will be announced this year. Screens fold up The big idea: We once had
flip phones. Now here come the flip tablets. At a display industry conference
in May, the buzz was about prototypes of screens that were flexible enough to
roll. One firm, BOE, showed a gadget it dubbed a "phoneblet" with a 7.5-inch
screen that folded, without seams, into a phone . . . without breaking. Fans of
the HBO show "Westworld" might have seen the sci-fi equivalent in the folding
tablets characters use to control robots. It's been coming for at least a
decade. Samsung showed a wowee folding-phone concept video at CES in 2013. The
first bendable screens went into curved TVs and phones that round at the edges.
We've now crossed a threshold where we can make screens that bend repeatedly
- and soon we'll be able to fold screens as sharply as a piece of paper, said
Helge Seetzen, the president of the Society for Information Display. How
does that work? BOE says it got rid of the traditional color filter and
backlight and replaced rigid glass with plastic. Bending doesn't break the
pixels
because each one is so tiny. Before you get too excited: Working prototypes are
one thing - producing millions of screens that can reliably fold is much
tougher. Anything with hinges (hidden behind the screen) could be easier to
break than current solid devices. But one silver lining: Moving to plastic
could make phones and tablets more shatter-resistant, even if they might be
easier to scratch. When will I get it? We'll see foldable devices in the next
year, though the first ones may have seams. Some analysts think Samsung's
folding phone (nicknamed the "Galaxy X") will start production in November and
cost $1,850 when it debuts in 2019. Seetzen says screens that fold like paper
are five years away. Batteries charge over thin air The big idea: Battery
life is the biggest problem with phones. Now imagine if you rarely had to think
about your battery because your phone was constantly charging. This is
going to sound a little crazy, but researchers have figured out ways to beam
low
levels of power through the air. Firms such as Energous and Ossia send
power using radio frequencies, while rival Wi-Charge uses infrared light that's
closer to lasers. I've seen functional prototypes of both technologies.
For these over-air charging systems to work, of course, you have to be in a
room
outfitted with transmitters. Energous says those might first get embedded
into other objects, such as computers and speakers, to charge nearby gadgets.
Wi-Charge says it is looking to go into light fixtures. Wait, will any of
this fry us? The makers of the tech say no because they're using such low
levels
of power. It's true we're already surrounded by energy from radio waves
and the sun. Energous says it doesn't expose bodies to more radiation than
cellphones, and Wi-Charge automatically cuts out if anything gets between its
transmitter and receiver. Before you get too excited: None of this wireless
charging tech is nearly as fast as plugging in your phone, though arguably
that's less important if your phone charges all day. And companies have been
promising this sort of technology for years. They're finally clearing regulatory
hurdles but now have the double challenge of getting gadget makers to use it -
and figuring out how to get transmitters into homes, airports and coffee
shops. When will I get it? Energous says hearing aids supporting a first
version
of its tech (which requires closer contact) are coming in a matter of
weeks. It says devices that charge over medium and larger distances are more
likely by 2019 or 2020. Wi-Charge says it hopes to sign up gadget makers as
soon as next spring. Glasses so you don't have to look at your phone The big
idea: Glasses are the "what comes next" that the tech industry is counting
on because they would let us remain online without looking down at screens.
Start-up Magic Leap raised more than $2.3 billion to make a "lightweight,
wearable
computer" that looks like a pair of welding glasses. Apple also applied for
patents for glasses tech, and chief executive Tim Cook frequently talks up
the potential of augmented reality, the technology that merges computer images
with the real world. (A form of AR tech is what powered the Pokémon Go craze.)
Early AR glasses are already coming out. I tried one from a start-up called
DreamWorld that offers a 90-degree field of view and responded to my hand
gestures.
It weighs only about half a pound because it plugs into a phone that does the
processing and holds the battery. Smart glasses are likely to require nearby
phones until the parts shrink enough to let them replace phones entirely.
Before
you get too excited: Wasn't Google Glass a flop? Yes. Very few people
want to walk around wearing a face computer. And then we have new social norms
to figure out, such as: If your glasses are taking a picture of - or looking
up information about - a person, how do you let them know? When will I get it?
DreamWorld's DreamGlass is available now for $400. More consumer-friendly
glasses that don't require wires or heavy gear are at least five years out.
Magic Leap has promised to ship a developer-focused version of its Magic Leap
One at some point this year.

"To take a lung full of air and push it out with some kind of song is an act of
survival, whether you’re singing in a shower, a car, a bar, in a chorus,
at a birthday party, at a church or wherever.
Try it -- you’ll live longer."
— Pete Seeger (who lived to be 94, singing all the while)

[the-facts-machine] Your next smartphone could unfold as easily as a napkin

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