“We want to claim this as the future of smart devices,” Ramchan Woo, the head of LG's mobile product planning division, said during a recent demonstration in San Francisco.
If such visions are realized, smartphones and tablets will be equipped with display screens that can be rolled up like a scroll or folded like a wallet.
Making the devices even easier to carry around will be important if software makers want to deepen the bond between people and their phones. That could happen as smarter tracking tools and voice recognition technology let smartphones understand habits and thoughts like a family member.
The future smartphone “will be small enough to carry with you at all times without thinking about it, and it will be essential enough that you won't want to get rid of it,” Silicon Valley futurist Paul Saffo said. “It will become a context engine. It will be aware of where it is, where you are going and what you need.”
