OLED bracelet: the computer of the future

MTB can weigh heavily on our shoulders. I mean literally. We have to carry around a lot: incentives for the people we interview for our projects, books and other documentation for our assignments, surveys we printed out, etc. But the one thing we carry around almost all the time – because we really can’t live without them anymore – are our laptops. Many frozen shoulders in the MTB-community have been caused by us carrying around these things all day every day.

Luckily, Sony is working on a solution: the OLED bracelet. Come again? The OLED bracelet is a computer concept designed by Sony, meant to be worn as a bracelet.

But what is this ‘OLED’? An OLED or organic light-emitting diode is a light source made of organic compounds that doesn’t need a lot of energy. OLED displays are already used as television screens, that deliver a superior picture quality, are much thinner and weigh much lighter than the existing LCD screens. And what intrigues us the most is that they are very eco-friendly because they require fewer materials and processing steps than LCD screens, because they’re made of organic materials and because they use power more efficiently.

Sounds great? Wait till you hear this! The OLED displays can also be fabricated on flexible plastic surfaces. This type of screen is called the flexible OLED or FOLED. The FOLED isn’t on the market yet, but its discovery led to numerous concepts and prototypes of foldable laptops, cell phones, smartphones, etc. Good news for our backs and for the environment! That is how Sony’s concept of the Nextep Computer Bracelet was born: a touchscreen mini-PC we can wear as a bracelet. Will you be strapping one of these around your wrist soon?

Learn more on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcAm3KihFho

Freya Van Durme