LG.Philips LCD has announced a 14.1-inch size flexible display. Dubbed "technology e-paper," the LG.Philips display uses technology from E-Ink Corporation, and is able to produce 4,096 colors (previously only available in grayscale). LG.Philips says that it"s able to achieve flexibility from using a thin metal foil, instead of thin glass, as the back lining for the display allowing the display to be bent and then recover its original shape. A company in France called Nemoptic also announced a 14.1-inch e-paper display capable of resolutions up to 1650x2340 (~4 megapixels) with approximately 200 dpi of resolution. Judging from the specifications, the Nemoptic display is identical to LG.Philips" unit.
The flexible displays are resistant to curve damage and use very little power. Because of the way E-ink works, the display only uses power when the image changes, allowing a static picture to hold for a long period of time without requiring power. Unfortunately, the technology behind E-ink is too slow to display videos (24-30 FPS) as the screens are only capable of a refresh rate of slightly less than one second. Both LG.Philips and Nemoptic indicate that they are shipping samples to manufacturers and consumers should see the technology available in the market sometime in 2008.