Did you slap your PaperPhone on ? Snaplet

Foldable screens and e-ink technologies have fueled our imaginations for years (remember the downloadable newspaper ?), and teams of North American researchers* added the logical next next step, with a PaperPhone prototype to be on display next Tuesday at the Computer Human Interaction conference in Vancouver. They went one notch further with the Snaplet, a wristband which becomes "a watch when convex, a PDA when flat and a phone when concave"**.

The Snaplet is a really interesting concept because it adds a human touch and provides a wearable solution for the rollscreen (call it a tablet or a phone depending on the circumstances). Of course, it won't be that simple (consider sweat, thefts, or shocks, for instance), but that's a nice upgrade for the snappable watch, and a perfect support for promotional gifts : I don't see people paying fortunes for a rugged version, but couple this with the disposable phone...

mot-bile 2011

* from Human Media Lab, Queen's University / Motivational Environments Research, Arizona State University
** both unveiled by the Beeb, see BBC's "Flexible phone made from electronic paper to debut"

Meet Al Gore's Granddaddy

According to Carly Fiorina, McCain cannot run a company.

According to himself, McCain cannot even run a HP laptop.

But according to his aides, McCain invented the BlackBerry.

Meet Al Gore's Great Grand Dad : "his" Commerce Committee created the new US telecom landscape.

Before, US players used to rule the world. Now US operators are minor league players and techno giants who dominated the first generation of mobile communications let Europeans win the second and Asia the third.

The BlackBerry is a great technological and commercial success, though, but for... Canada (the Lords of the RIM, frequent visitors to this excuse for a site, are based in Waterloo, ON).

PS : according to me, John McCain cannot run a company, nor a laptop, but furthermore, he should run, period. Because he can't hide who he's running for.