One thing we always need to remember when we see a patent from a company, no matter how cool or relevant it seems, it’s entirely possible the patent is simply a place-holder to stop anyone else taking the idea. So it’s with this new patent from Samsung that we analyse it with a very large handful of salt; although this design was registered in South Korea sometime between March and May, and we’re expecting a Samsung GEAR from Samsung this year at IFA, the technology shown in this patent seems a little beyond what is possible at the moment. We’d love to be wrong though.
The patent depicts a smartwatch with a very large, flexible screen as well as a few soft keys at the base of the screen. Flexible touchscreen technology does exist already, which we’ve seen from both LG and Samsung this year, but we haven’t heard much about it since their very brief demoes. It does make sense for flexible touchscreens to be utilized in this manner, but everybody’s being very hush-hushed about smartwatches currently, which makes you wonder who’s going to have the biggest surprise. If this does actually turn out to be the design for the Samsung GEAR, it would be the single most impressive device we see in 2013, hands down.
What do you think about this design? Think it’ll happen? Let us know what you think.
Source: Move Player via engadget
