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Home / News / “Papertab” paper tablet is your flexible friend

“Papertab” paper tablet is your flexible friend

It looks like a sheet of A4, but it’s actually a 10.7-inch hi-res slate with an Intel processor

Flexible e-ink displays are one thing, but an actual working tablet that’s as thin as a sheet of paper – that’s impressive. And that’s exactly what the Papertab is.

Developed by researchers at Queen’s University, Canada, the Papertab is a fully interactive touch-sensitive 10.7-inch sheet of plastic able to display documents, images, videos and the like.

Bending the corner up or down allows you to “turn” pages back and forward, which is nice, but perhaps more interesting is the idea of combining multiple Papertabs (ten and upwards), with each showing different documents or running different apps. The Papertabs are designed to keep track of their location relative to other Papertabs, so you can show larger images by putting one next to another and having the image display across both. Take a look at the video below to see it in action.

The device is powered by an Intel Core i5 processor (apparently housed somewhere else – Papertabs have to be plugged in to work), and Intel research scientist Ryan Brotman believes that “within five to ten years” most computers will look and feel like the Papertab, albeit with colour screens rather than monochrome displays.

[via Human Media Lab]

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Profile image of Dan Grabham Dan Grabham Editor-in-Chief

About

Dan is Editor-in-chief of Stuff, working across the magazine and the Stuff.tv website.  Our Editor-in-Chief is a regular at tech shows such as CES in Las Vegas, IFA in Berlin and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona as well as at other launches and events. He has been a CES Innovation Awards judge. Dan is completely platform agnostic and very at home using and writing about Windows, macOS, Android and iOS/iPadOS plus lots and lots of gadgets including audio and smart home gear, laptops and smartphones. He's also been interviewed and quoted in a wide variety of places including The Sun, BBC World Service, BBC News Online, BBC Radio 5Live, BBC Radio 4, Sky News Radio and BBC Local Radio.

Areas of expertise

Computing, mobile, audio, smart home

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