Samsung touching up ROUNDED, CURVY plastic enhanced MODEL Samsung has launched what it describes as the "world's first curved display smartphone", the Galaxy Round. This is despite the fact that Samsung built the last phone with a curved screen only three years ago. You can't get your hands on one yet, though – the new handset, which has a flexible 5.7-inch high-def display, is only …
Perhaps it's curved so that when you put it face down on the desk (Touchwiz has an option that this action mutes the phone - ideal for meetings), it's not going to get scratched and there's less muffling of the microphone for the covert tapping app installed by the security services.
They won't need to. They can release a curved phone that obviously is the same style, patent it and USPTO will grant it despite prior art and even if Samsung et al have their own patent. It'll go to court, fight out and even if Samsung win and get a ban on Apple, Obama will overturn it as Apple is of benefit to the US economy supposedly, plus he probably likes his iThings, then Apple will win a ban against Samsung and round we go to the next product.
>Now Apple will have to make a phone that's curved in both axes... to claim the crown as most innovative phone maker.
Cool! And you can carry it on top of your head, freeing up a hand so that you can hold up both cup and saucer simultaneously. Or whatever other pair of things might interest you.
First step towards getting rid of the infamous 'rounded corners'... they'll shortly be releasing a spheroid phone, so _no_ corners :)
Then again it could just be so that the poor yoof of 2day don't have to move their poor little thumbs so much when typing on the touchscreen keyboard... that extra 3mm of physical movement must be damaging to their health!
Damn I'm getting old... my second phone was the nokia 8110i, and a great phone it was too!
I think they forgot the word "smart".
And I think, at the very least, you're forgetting the earliest landline phones, a lot of which had curved handsets.
Curved telephones have been around for probably 100 years now. Curved smartphones not so long.
I have to admit that I am wondering how well you can hold this to your head as it looks like there would be a gap between your ear and the earpiece.
I'm not sure what gloriously advanced planet you grew up on, but here on Earth the earliest complete landline handsets were two half spheres of iron connected by a straight wooden handle. It was brass and mahogany if you were upscale.
They did have advanced voice activated features though. The phone lady did your dialing for you, provided inclement weather updates as well as acting as a hub for a localized social network that was far more intrusive than what we have today.
>The phone lady did your dialing for you, provided inclement weather updates as well as acting as a hub for a localized social network that was far more intrusive than what we have today.
I doubt that last claim. The scale was smaller and the culture was verbal—rather than digital—and the content gleaned was transient—so always current, yet ephemeral. These aspects of the network arguably contributed to social peace and civil relations within society at that time—largely because there was a good chance you knew where the person listening in on your conversations actually worked. And lived.
"The invention relates to a building made using building panels where the building panels may be glass, may include a plurality of glass layers, and may be curved. The building may include glass fins and glass beams for support, and a glass roof. The glass building panels, glass fins, glass beams, and glass roof may be connected together by a plurality of fittings."
Now they just have to prove the new Samsung can be used as building material. Not that difficult.
I'm sure there is probably a market for this, not a big one but Samsung likes to fill every niche so they probably don't need to sell a million of them to meet the goals they have for it.
Mainly I'm just glad to see a phone using a flexible screen finally released so idiots will quit thinking it means a phone they can fold up like the old flip phones.
It is funny now, but the old Motorola flip phones were unbelievably advanced tech in their day. You may as well have been holding a tri-corder. People didn't believe they were real phones. They had to call someone on it themselves to validate its existence.
I'm pretty sure my Granny thought I had gotten into witchcraft. She used mine one time and never wanted anything else to do with it. She would always ask if I was calling her on my 'spy phone', she didn't like it one bit. Times sure have changed from 25 years ago.
/reminiscence
"I'm sure there is probably a market for this, not a big one but Samsung likes to fill every niche so they probably don't need to sell a million of them to meet the goals they have for it."
Shame on them for offering different models to suit different people. The nerve of Samsung!
The screen on my Galaxy Nexus (US Verizon) is slightly curved, so I'm not sure where first is coming from. This is only maybe 1-2mm over the length of the phone though.
I think it's us hammy dudes here that don't see the use of this. If you're a tiny little thing (wee little lass, for you UKers*), it'll fit in the front pocket of a pair of jeans a lot better.
* Yes, I know that's really Scotland, settle down.
Once upon a time nearly everyone thought the earth was flat, and when it was suggested that it was actually curved/round, people took great exception - almost as much exception as the readers of The Register to the non-flat/how-dare-it-be-curved screen.
It's amazing how strong the resistance is. No one has thought that the advantage of the curved screen may not lie in its utility, but in its power to reflect the world. A flat screen/page wh. has lasted for thousands of years is actually a very "rigid" way of looking at the world. A curved screen is a more flexible way, a way more reflective of the solidity of objects - and I suspect we are all going to be seeing a lot more of it, because we're going to prefer looking at it.
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