Two years ago Apple Inc launched the iPad, which produced rival tablets from Samsung Electronics Co, Amazon.com Inc, Sony Corp, Google Inc and Microsoft Corp. The competition between these companies focuses on making smartphone and tablets lighter, slimmer, faster and longer-running. This crowed marketplace is also having hardware designers and software engineers to explore new technologies that may redesign the look and feel of mobile devices.
Some companies are starting to experiment with wearable devices, such as Google Glass, a stamp-sized electronic screen mounted on eyeglass frames. While Microsoft is investigating the use of 3-D cameras to create images that pop up when a person calls. Samsung has an innovative concept that’s a bendable, transparent 3-D smartphone-hybrid tablet that can also be used as a real-time interpreter.
Companies and researchers are actively working on touchscreen innovations. In particular, organic-light-emitting diodes, or OLED, is widely touted as the successor to liquid crystal displays. OLED displays, such as in Samsung's Galaxy Note smartphone, are lighter, thinner and tougher than current displays.
The main attraction of OLED at first are their ruggedness, but the technology could one day allow tablets to be folded or rolled up like a newspaper. Reaching that point poses challenges like making the delicate chips and components inside them more flexible and resistant to damage.
Another new development comes from Corning Inc, the glass company made famous for its "gorilla glass" on Apple devices. The company’s latest project is an ultra-slim flexible glass called "willow glass" that can display images wrapped around a device. Corning said that its willow glass, will be compatible with OLED displays.
A further challenge facing new technology is integration. Currently, there’s high risk as tablets become more and more integrated with smartphones and other devices at home. Betting on the right technology and features is imperative, since the still-new category has already claimed many victims, such as Hewlett Packard's Touchpad tablet that was killed last year after only a few months on the market.
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