Researchers Unveil Flexible Smartphone Bend Gesture Interface

We are completely incorporated into our smartphones and touchscreens these days. We’re so used to them that it doesn’t matter where we go or what we do, there is always a touchscreen close to us. With curved smartwatches and flexible smartphones, the user interface could be switched yet again. What we’re looking at then is a new way to interact with our smartphones. Researchers in Canada unveiled just how a flexible smartphone bend gesture interface might work.

I keep asking myself if there really is a better optimized user interface than the touchscreen. I mean, there are always going to be refinements that help improve optimization and usability, but when it comes to bend gestures and what they’ll do to our smartphones, I just don’t know what to think. Incorporating another level of user interaction with future smartphones is probably a good thing, but adding a bend gesture interface seems a little unoptimized if you ask me.

But then again, I have no idea what features a bend gesture interface would activate. Watching this demo video of what these researchers at Queen’s University in Canada managed to create certainly gave me a little bit more to think about. Imagine having a flexible touchscreen with bend gesture features that would enable you to further create features that mimic the more logical approach of turning a page, flipping through pictures or even calling someone.

This little video shows just how this interface might work on future smartphones, and what they might trigger. With a little innovation and refining, we could be looking at truly amazingly thin yet powerful smartphones that with a simple bend on a corner, would power up. It’s certainly a more optimized way to flip through pictures and videos than having to swipe the entire screen for each picture and so forth.

So when will this bend gesture interface be incorporated into new smartphones? Well, so far the technology is just in the development stage, but I am sure as soon as we start seeing smartphones and smartwatches sporting flexible screens, these features will be incorporated.