Gadgets Blog

We are all looking forward to the days when our computer screens will be as thin as a piece of paper, and it would appear that Samsung’s new ultra-thin flexible AMOLED screen is about ready to herald in that era.

Sure, this 6.5 inch flexible OLED that you see here is just a prototype, but you can at least see how flexible it is. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if you could spindle it. That is, roll it up like a kid who plays “telescope” with an ordinary piece of paper.

I can think of one application for this technology that I saw in a movie. In Red Mars, Val Kilmer has a mobile computer that must have a very flexible AMOLED screen. This screen took up a minimal amount of space, as he was able to retract it into its tiny case like a window blind.

I realize that many of you might not remember that 2000 movie, which was set in the year 2050. As I recall, the AMOLED was able to recognize Martian landmarks just by holding the screen up to them. I’m not certain if Samsung is working on that, but they will probably have it perfected by the mid-century. That isn’t a quote from the company, but it is a personal prediction.

In the meantime, let us all sit back and dream of classrooms of the future, where the teacher hands out a test on very flexible AMOLED paper. I would imagine that after the students were finished, he or she could stack them in a pile, put them in a machine, and they would have their grades in seconds.

Think of other uses for AMOLED displays while you are at it, and put them in the comments section.

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Samsung and US Cellular have recently announced that they will be carrying the SCH-u440. This smartphone is also known as the Gloss, and it certainly looks like some sort of makeup compact of some kind. Perhaps it should have been called the Blush.

There is a full QWERTY revealed when the Gloss is unfolded, and threaded SMS displays every text in chat-conversation format on its 2.2 inch LCD display. The Gloss has a talk time of up to five hours and a standby time of up to 260 hours.

There is about 16GB worth of external memory for music and photos. The music player is a nice MP3 style, and the camera is 1.3 Megapixel for “runway quality”.

I’m thinking that supermodels and other fashion-philes are the target audience of the Gloss. After all, it comes in colors of pink, champagne, light blue, and a limited edition with yummy lip butter from CAKE beauty. Not really very “manly” colors, to be certain.

Still, I have to admire the Gloss of for trying a new shape in phones: square. Has any other phone tried this simple shape? Okay, the dimensions are 2.55 x 2.94 inches, which is not a perfect square, but it looks like it.

More details can be found at the Samsung site.

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With the many e-book readers that flood the market today, it isn’t hard to believe that we will be a paperless society in the next few decades. Pretty soon, the only paper we will be using regularly is toilet paper.

So I guess it is no surprise that Japanese novelist Koji Suzuki has chosen to print his novel on toilet paper. Actually, I’m not certain whether Mr. Suzuki made the choice, or if the publicity department at his publishing house was really itching for a new marketing idea.

I honestly don’t think that Koji Suzuki needs any fancy gimmick to sell his works. If you never heard of this author, then you might have heard of a 2002 horror movie called The Ring. Yes, he wrote the book that the Gore Verbinski movie is based on. By the way, that movie was a remake of a Japanese movie Ringu.

His latest work, Drop, another horror story, is in skull scroll format. You won’t need a special e-book reader from Amazon to read its unique format, because you probably have the device right next to your toilet seat.

Now is the time of Coolest Gadgets when we make jokes about the product. For example, here is a review of Drop: “This story is so bad, that it isn’t worth wiping my butt with it. And believe me, I did.” Or how about: “The last time I ate three burritos, I went through three chapters of Drop. Of course, I wasn’t reading it”.

Come on, it is a novel written on toilet paper! The jokes ought to write themselves. Give it a try if you don’t believe me, and leave it with us on the comments.

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When Canon released the 21 MP 5D Mk. II complete with 1080p full frame video, serious videographers were drooling. And after seeing such shorts as “Reverie,” by professional photographers using the video feature to shoot some serious cinematic imagery, the chief complaint was that the 5D Mk. II’s video feature was purely automatic. That there was no ability to control manually the exposure or shutter settings for the video feature, was always a thorn in professional videographers side. No more. According to CNet, a firmware update for the $2500+ camera body is coming which will give photographers the keys to the video kingdom.

The basic reason why Canon left out manual control for video was simply because they considered video to be the “icing on the cake” to the core feature of the camera, which was obviously to shoot digital still images in high resolution. But they did such a great job with the quality of the full frame 1080p video that 5D users were screaming for Canon to release the manual hounds.

“This new firmware will accommodate a great number of user requests for manual exposure control in the EOS 5D Mark II video mode. Manual exposure control while shooting video on the EOS 5D Mark II is expected to make a big impact with cinematographers and videographers using the 5D Mark II for high-end HD video production,” Canon said.

The ability to control the ISO, f stop and shutter settings for the 5D Mk. II will allow the camera to become a serious cinematic contender for budding filmmakers on a budget. The new firmware update will be available next month.

Hat Tip â€" Crave