A new prototype of the world's first interactive "paper" computer was recently unveiled by the Human Media Lab at Queen's University. Called the PaperPhone, the prototype can store books, play music and make phone calls like any other smartphone, but its flexible form makes it much more portable than any mobile computer currently on the market.

The invention heralds a new generation of computers that are extremely lightweight, thin and flexible. The display consists of a 9.5 cm diagonal thin-film flexible E Ink display.

"This is the future. Everything is going to look and feel like this within five years," says creator Roel Vertegaal, Director of the Human Media Lab at Queen's University. "This computer looks, feels and operates like a small sheet of interactive paper. You interact with it by bending it into a cell phone, flipping the corner to turn pages, or writing on it with a pen."

The Queen's Human Media Lab explores and develops disruptive technologies and new ways of working with computers that are viable 10 to 20 years from now. Researchers are currently working on the design of Organic User Interfaces, a new paradigm that allows computers to have any shape or form, such as the PaperPhone.

Dr. Vertegaal recently unveiled the PaperPhone at the Association of Computing Machinery's 2011 Computer Human Interaction conference in Vancouver recently.

The development team included researchers from Arizona State University and E Ink Corporation.

View the video on YouTube and learn more at www.humanmedialab.org/paperphone.