2012-03-31

Tomcat (Rove Beetle) Outbreak in Indonesia


‘Tomcat’ Beetles Run Riot in Indonesia | The Jakarta Globe


Insects are an inescapable part of life in Indonesia, but a recent infestation of one species has got many people itching and irritated. The latest scourge is tomcats, or rove beetles, which are being dislodged from their habitats near areas making way for development.

Many people have suffered acute dermatitis and swelling to the skin after coming into contact with the insects.




By Poisonous Liquid, Tomcat (Rove Beetle) Has Attacked Surabaya (East Java) | Scienceray


Tomcat or Rove Beetle (paederus riparius) has toxin that 12 times more dangerous than poison of the cobra.


Tomcat is poisonous insect. The animal has lesser 1 cm in size. It likes light in the night, so it usually attacks at night. In Indonesia, tomcat is known as semut semai(semai ant) or semut kayap(kayap ant).  Yes, tomcat looks similar to an ant. It has a more elongated body with orange and black colors. And the insect is known as tomcat, probably because of its shape like F-14 Tomcat fighter plane.

Tomcat does not bite, but it has toxin (hemolimf fluids) that 12 times more dangerous than poison of cobra snake. The colors of tomcat, orange and black, are sign that the animal has poison. When threatened, tomcat raises its abdomen in the manner of a scorpion. It will release its toxin automatically if touches human skin directly or indirectly. The toxin of tomcat is paederin (C24H43O9N). Paederin can cause serious inflammation or dermatitis or blisters 24 to 48 hours after contact with the skin.



2012-03-29

A Google Self-Driving Car Experience

Amazing! Google's self-driving car allows the blind to drive | Fox News

Mahan was behind the wheel of a Toyota Prius tooling the small California town of Morgan Hill in late January, a routine trip to pick up the dry cleaning and drop by the Taco Bell drive-in for a snack.

He also happens to be 95 percent blind.

Mahan, head of the Santa Clara Valley Blind Center, “drove” along a specially programmed route thanks to Google’s autonomous driving technology.

Self-Driving Car Test: Steve Mahan - YouTube



We announced our self-driving car project in 2010 to make driving safer, more enjoyable, and more efficient. Having safely completed over 200,000 miles of computer-led driving, we wanted to share one of our favorite moments. Here's Steve, who joined us for a special drive on a carefully programmed route to experience being behind the wheel in a whole new way. We organized this test as a technical experiment, but we think it's also a promising look at what autonomous technology may one day deliver if rigorous technology and safety standards can be met.


Google driverless car - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Google Driverless Car is a project by Google that involves developing technology for driverless cars. [...]
The system combines information gathered from Google Street View with artificial intelligence software that combines input from video cameras inside the car, a LIDAR sensor on top of the vehicle, radar sensors on the front of the vehicle and a position sensor attached to one of the rear wheels that helps locate the car's position on the map.

Sebastian Thrun: Google's driverless car | Video on TED.com


Sebastian Thrun helped build Google's amazing driverless car, powered by a very personal quest to save lives and reduce traffic accidents. Jawdropping video shows the DARPA Challenge-winning car motoring through busy city traffic with no one behind the wheel, and dramatic test drive footage from TED2011 demonstrates how fast the thing can really go.


2012-03-27

Perpetual Ocean -- Ocean Surface Currents Animation

Last year, a group of NASA scientists and animators put together this animation of the world’s ocean surface currents, based on ocean flow data for June 2005 to December 2007. The video starts over the Atlantic, and as the globe rotates, you can see the whorls and waves dancing across the ocean, the relative calm of the Pacific, and the stillness around Antarctica. [...] The tool NASA used to make the visualization — ECCO2 or Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean


ECCO2 Home Page

To increase understanding and predictive capability for the ocean's role in future climate change scenarios, the NASA Modeling, Analysis, and Prediction (MAP) program is funding a project called Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean, Phase II (ECCO2): High-Resolution Global-Ocean and Sea-Ice Data Synthesis. ECCO2 aims to produce increasingly accurate syntheses of all available global-scale ocean and sea-ice data at resolutions that start to resolve ocean eddies and other narrow current systems, which transport heat, carbon, and other properties within the ocean.


2012-03-26

New Advanced Surveillance Camera System

New surveillance camera can search 36 million faces for matches in one second



(PhysOrg.com) -- A new surveillance camera by Hitachi Kokusai Electric can look at footage that contains an image of someone, either still or video, and then search other video or still images on file for other instances of that same face. In so doing, it can search, process and display up to thirty six million faces in just one second. Each hit is displayed immediately in its native format, i.e. still or video, in thumbnail form, which its makers say, allows the camera to display the actions of a person prior to, or even after, being seen by the surveillance camera. All they need do is click on the thumbnail to watch the video play.




Surveillance Camera System Searches Through 36 Million Faces In One Second - DigInfo TV - Tech News Videos From Japan | The latest technology, products, gadgets and scientific research direct from Tokyo

The search results are displayed immediately, showing thumbnail images of potential candidates. When a thumbnail is selected, the associated recorded surveillance footage can be viewed, so users can quickly review the persons actions before and after the image was taken.

"This high speed is achieved by detecting faces through image recognition when the footage from the camera is recorded, and also by grouping similar faces."
With this system, it's assumed that faces are turning within around 30 degrees in the horizontal and vertical directions from the camera, and the faces are at least 40 x 40 pixels in size.

"We think this system is suitable for customers that have a relatively large-scale surveillance system, such as railways, power companies, law enforcement, and large stores."


2012-03-25

Google's Semantic Search Technology

Google Gives Search a Refresh - WSJ.com

Powering up the Search Engine

Google is adding semantic technology to its keyword search system.

Keyword Search
  • Determines the importance of websites based on the words it contains, links to those sites and dozens of other measures.
  • Also factors in the person searching, such as his location and the time of day.
Semantic Search
  • Refers to the process of understanding the actual meaning of words.
  • Can differentiate between words with more than one meaning, such as the car brand 'Jaguar' and the animal 'jaguar.'


When people search, they aim to answer a question. They just search in the truncated version of that question. Keyword research is largely data-driven around the popularity of the terms in their question. Keyword research in semantic search will have to focus on what that person actually means when searching for that keyword.
For example: Yoga. What could people mean they search “yoga?”
  • What is yoga?
  • The different types of yoga
  • How to do different yoga positions
  • The best fit of yoga pants
  • Yoga exercise videos
The possibilities are endless. When you’re framing your content in a semantic search world, it has to be around answering the specific questions people have as it relates to that keyword. With every sentence you write, ask yourself: How does this answer the searcher’s question? You will have to focus on the natural language even if those users are still focusing on keywords.


2012-03-24

The Vortex Cannon

The Vortex Cannon - Student Science - YouTube

After weeks of pestering, we finally give in and let George build a vortex cannon - with surprisingly spooky cup flying results. For more information on the physics behind this head on over to http://www.urn1350.net/thescienceshow to listen to the full podcast!



Vortex ring - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


A vortex ring, also called a toroidal vortex, is a region of rotating fluid moving through the same or different fluid where the flow pattern takes on a toroidal (doughnut) shape. The movement of the fluid is about the poloidal or circular axis of the doughnut, in a twisting vortex motion. Examples of this phenomenon are a smoke ring or a microburst[1][2]

Vortex ring toy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A vortex ring toy generates vortex rings – rolling torus-shapes of fluid – that move through the fluid (most often air, and sometimes water). [...] A vortex cannon generates vortex rings, typically using acetylene-air or hydrogen–oxygen explosions.[1]

Vortex Cannon! - Bang Goes the Theory Preview - BBC One - YouTube


Jem Stansfield builds a vortex cannon to blow a house of bricks over.



2012-03-23

IBM's Watson to Help Diagnose Cancer


IBM's Watson to Help Treat Cancer : Discovery News



IBM's Watson computer -- the one that beat the best human players at Jeopardy! -- will now help doctors at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center diagnose cancer.


IBM News room - 2012-03-22 Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, IBM to Collaborate in Applying Watson Technology to Help Oncologists - United States

The initiative will combine the computational power of IBM Watson and its natural language processing ability with MSKCC’s clinical knowledge, existing molecular and genomic data and vast repository of cancer case histories, in order to create an outcome and evidence-based decision support system. The goal is to give oncologists located anywhere the ability to obtain detailed diagnostic and treatment options based on updated research that will help them decide how best to care for an individual patient.


MSKCC’s world-renowned oncologists will assist in developing IBM Watson to use a patient’s medical information and synthesize a vast array of continuously updated and vetted treatment guidelines, published research and insights gleaned from the deep experience of MSKCC clinicians to provide an individualized recommendation to physicians. The tool will also provide users with a detailed record of the data and evidence used to reach the recommendations.



Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, IBM to Collaborate in Applying Watson Technology to Help Oncologists | Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center


“This comprehensive, evidence-based approach will profoundly enhance cancer care by accelerating the dissemination of practice-changing research at an unprecedented pace,” said Dr. Mark G. Kris, Chief, Thoracic Oncology Service at MSKCC and one of the clinicians leading the development effort. He noted that 85% of patients with cancer are not treated at specialized medical centers and it can take years for the latest developments in oncology to reach all practice settings.

Development work is already underway for the first applications, which include lung, breast and prostate cancers. The objective is to begin piloting the solutions to a select group of oncologists in late 2012, with wider distribution planned for late 2013. This collaboration complements an earlier announcement by IBM and WellPoint that the parties will focus on putting Watson to work on oncology solutions.


2012-03-22

Cure for Baldness Becomes Feasible

Cure for baldness 'could be on sale within five years' | Mail Online



The breakthrough, from the University of Pennsylvania in the U.S, centres on a protein called PDG2.

When the scientists analysed the scalps of balding men, they found levels of PDG2 to be three times higher in areas in which the hair was thinning.

In tests on lab and on mice, the compound stunted hair growth, the journal Science Translational Medicine reports.

Earlier work by the same team found bald men have cells capable of making hair, they have just failed to mature.

Hair we go: At the moment men have very few options for treating baldness
It is thought that PGD2 prevents the cells maturing - and stopping it from working would allow hair to grow again.

Drugs that block PGD2 are already been tested by drug companies looking for new treatments for asthma.


Perelman School of Medicine Experts Identify Inhibitor Causing Male Pattern Baldness and Target for Hair Loss Treatments

 Miniaturized human hair follicle shows concentration of Prostaglandin D2 (in green). Credit: Garza and Cotsarelis/Penn Medicine

"Although a different prostaglandin was known to increase hair growth, our findings were unexpected, as prostaglandins haven't been thought about in relation to hair loss, yet it made sense that there was an inhibitor of hair growth, based on our earlier work looking at hair follicle stem cells," said George Cotsarelis, MD, chair and professor of Dermatology, and senior author on the studies. In a Penn study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation last year, underlying hair follicle stem cells were found intact, suggesting that the scalp was lacking an activator or something was inhibiting hair follicle growth.
Prostaglandins are well characterized for their role in many bodily functions — controlling cell growth, constricting and dilating smooth muscle tissue — and a different prostaglandin (F2alpha) is known to increase hair growth. Researchers found that as PGD2 inhibits hair growth, other prostaglandins work in opposition, enhancing and regulating the speed of hair growth.





2012-03-19

A Silent Supersonic Biplane


New Biplane Design Stops Sonic Booms | Silent Supersonic Aircraft | LiveScience


A supersonic biplane concept created by Kazuhiro Kusunose and colleagues at Tohoku University in Japan. CREDIT: Institute of Fluid Science | Tohoku University
A newer version of the biplane could reach supersonic cruising speeds without causing ear-splitting sonic booms, according to computer simulations by MIT and Stanford University researchers. They built upon the design of German engineer Adolf Busemann, who originally envisioned triangular wings connected at their tips.

A biplane to break the sound barrier - MIT News Office

Wang and his colleagues Rui Hu, a postdoc in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and Antony Jameson, a professor of engineering at Stanford University, have shown through a computer model that a modified biplane can, in fact, produce significantly less drag than a conventional single-wing aircraft at supersonic cruise speeds. The group will publish their results in the Journal of Aircraft.

This decreased drag, according to Wang, means the plane would require less fuel to fly. It also means the plane would produce less of a sonic boom.

“The sonic boom is really the shock waves created by the supersonic airplanes, propagated to the ground,” Wang says. “It’s like hearing gunfire. It’s so annoying that supersonic jets were not allowed to fly over land.”

Sonic boom - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A sonic boom is the sound associated with the shock waves created by an object traveling through the air faster than the speed of sound. Sonic booms generate enormous amounts of sound energy, sounding much like an explosion. The crack of a supersonic bullet passing overhead is an example of a sonic boom in miniature.

A sonic boom produced by an aircraft moving at M=2.92, calculated from the cone angle of 20 degrees. An observer hears the boom when the shock wave, on the edges of the cone, crosses his or her location.
Mach cone angle



2012-03-18

Neutrinos Communication Through the Earth

Short Sharp Science: Neutrinos send wireless message through the Earth


A team at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois have successfully used a beam of the near-massless particles to transmit the word "neutrino" to a detector 1 km away, including a 240-metre journey through solid rock.

Neutrinos rarely interact with other forms of matter, so pass through most objects unimpeded - including the Earth's core. That makes them potentially useful as messengers. Previous suggestions include using these ghostly particles to send messages across the planet without wires, cables or satellites, to communicate with hidden submarines or even to sync alien clocks. This latest experiment is the first demonstration that the principle actually works.

Neutrinos used for communication | TG Daily


The most intriguing thing about using neutrinos to communicate is that they can penetrate almost anything they encounter. This could be a particularly useful feature for submarines, for example, or for sending messages in space, allowing them to travel straight through a planet.

Neutrinos are extremely tiny particles with almost zero mass and neutral charge. Thus they are impervious to electromagnetic forces and respond very weakly to gravity. They almost never collide with other particles, generally passing straight through the atoms that make up matter.

Now, scientists have successfully harnessed neutrinos to send a message from one place to another, spelling out the word "neutrino" in a particle binary code. [Nature's Tiniest Particles Dissected (Infographic)]




Researchers Send "Wireless" Message Using Elusive Particles : Rochester News

The communication test was done during a two-hour period when the accelerator was running at half its full intensity due to an upcoming scheduled downtime. Regular MINERvA interaction data was collected at the same time the communication test was being carried out.

[...]

The message that the scientists sent using neutrinos was translated into binary code. In other words, the word "neutrino" was represented by a series of 1's and 0's, with the 1's corresponding to a group of neutrinos being fired and the 0's corresponding to no neutrinos being fired. The neutrinos were fired in large groups because they are so evasive that even with a multi-ton detector, only about one in ten billion neutrinos are detected. After the neutrinos were detected, a computer on the other end translated the binary code back into English, and the word "neutrino" was successfully received.

"Neutrinos have been an amazing tool to help us learn about the workings of both the nucleus and the universe," said Deborah Harris, Minerva project manager, "but neutrino communication has a long way to go before it will be as effective."

Minerva is an international collaboration of nuclear and particle physicists from 21 institutions that study neutrino behavior using a detector located at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Chicago. This is the first neutrino experiment in the world to use a high-intensity beam to study neutrino reactions with nuclei of five different target materials, creating the first side-by-side comparison of interactions. This will help complete the picture of neutrinos and allow data to be more clearly interpreted in current and future experiments.


Microsoft's Lifebrowser

Lifebrowser: Data mining gets (really) personal at Microsoft


(PhysOrg.com) -- Microsoft Research is doing research on software that could bring you your own personal data mining center with a touch of Proust for returns. In a recent video, Microsoft scientist Eric Horvitz demonstrated the Lifebrowser, which is prototype software that helps put your digital life in meaningful shape. The software uses machine learning to help a user place life events, which may span months or years, to be expanded or contracted selectively, in better context.

Microsoft Builds a Browser for Your Past - Technology Review

Lifebrowser's interactive timeline looks like a less polished version of Facebook's recently introduced Timeline feature. However, Horvitz's design predates Facebook's and doesn't rely on a user to manually curate it. Photos, e-mails, and other documents and data points appear in chronological order, but Lifebrowser's timeline only shows those judged to be associated with "landmark" events by artificial intelligence algorithms. A user can slide a "volume control" to change how significant data has to be if it is to appear on the timeline. A search feature can pull up landmark events on a certain topic.

Lifebrowser - YouTube


Machine learning is being applied in new ways to understand people and to assist them with daily work and activities. Presented at Microsoft TechForum 2012, Lifebrowser leverages machine learning and reasoning to help people to navigate through large personal stores of their own information, appointments, photos, and activities, including their history with searching and browsing on the Web over days, months, and years. The prototype learns about and infers "memory landmarks" -- events and activities that people would find important and memorable. The system builds a timeline around inferred landmarks, and allows users to zoom in on details of the timeline around inferred landmarks with a "volume control." The system also enables users to perform search and retrieval of content in the context of the landmarks.

2012-03-17

Alien Photosynthesis

Far-Out Photosynthesis

Photosynthesis maintains Earth's habitability for life as we know it, and shapes the way we search for habitable worlds around distant stars. Scientists have discovered a microbe that can use low-energy light to perform photosynthesis. This discovery could alter theories about the types of stars that could support Earth-like worlds.

In the process of photosynthesis on Earth, plants convert energy from the sun into chemical energy in the form of glucose, or sugar. The chlorophyll in plants absorbs more blue and red light from sunlight, and less green light. Chlorophyll is green, because it reflects green light more than blue and red light. Credit: NASA Ames


Different types of stars have different temperatures and lifetimes. Cooler red M-class stars live a long time, while hotter blue A-class stars have relatively brief lives. These four pictures are actually four different views of our own star, the sun. Each false-color view highlights atomic emission in different temperature regimes of the upper solar atmosphere. Yellow is 2 million Kelvin, green is 1.5 million K, blue is 1 million K, and red is 60 to 80 thousand K. Image Credit: Stereo Project/NASA

NASA GISS: Research Features: Far-Out Photosynthesis

Kiang emphasizes the implications that the findings could have in the search for life on extrasolar planets - and the future of life here on Earth:

1) "Planets orbiting red dwarf stars may not get much visible light, but they'll get a lot of NIR light. So, now we know it would still make sense to look for oxygenic photosynthesis on such planets, and we could look for pigment signatures in the NIR."

2) "A. marina appears to be a late evolution, occupying a light niche that is produced by leftover photons from Chl a organisms. Since it can use more solar radiation than Chl a organisms, might our planet evolve to have Chl d outcompete Chl a?"

3) "Biomimicry of photosynthesis continues to be a quest in the development of renewable energy, but no one has yet developed an artificial system as good as Nature to split water. For renewable energy that depends on sunlight, do the lower energy photons used with Chl d mean that we don't need such strong artificial catalysts for producing hydrogen fuel and biofuels?"

The findings could completely change our understanding of a biological reaction that is essential to the modern biosphere of Earth. They may also open new doors for the future of humankind in areas like renewable energy. But for NASA, the study could also have implications for the future of life on Earth — and beyond — that are truly far out.


2012-03-15

Nanoscale 3D printing

Fast 3D printing with nanoscale precision | KurzweilAI

Printing three dimensional objects with very fine details using two-photon lithography can now be achieved orders of magnitude faster than similar devices in a breakthrough by Vienna University of Technology (TU Vienna) researchers.

The 3D printing process uses a liquid resin, which is hardened at precisely the correct spots by a focused laser beam. The focal point of the laser beam is guided through the resin by movable mirrors and leaves behind a hardened line of solid polymer a few hundred nanometers wide.

Additive Manufacturing Technologies : Projects


Additive Manufacturing Technologies refers to manufacturing techniques which build up three-dimensional structures by sequentially adding material. Usually this is done by decomposing a part into thin layers and sequentially stacking up layer-by-layer. 

Additive Manufacturing Technologies : Two photon polymerization

Two-photon polymerisation (2PP) is a technique to fabricate three dimensional structures with resolutions down to 100nm (see St. Stephan’s cathedral and Tower Bridge). An fs-pulsed laser (usually emitting at 800nm) is focussed in the volume of a photopolymerisable formulation. Polymerisation only occurs in the focal point, where the intensity of the absorbed light is highest. This technique is the first AMT capable of fabricating true 3D structures without the necessity of layer-by-layer manufacturing.





High speed fabrication of race car - YouTube


In the video, a race car with dimensions of 330x130x100µm3 is fabricated. The structure consists of 100 layers, each made of an average of 200 polymer lines. It is finished in 4 minutes and resembles the CAD file at a precision of ±1µm.

Interactive Newsprint and Printed Electronics


Interactive Newsprint is a new research project led by the School of Journalism, Media and Communication at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) and funded by the Digital Economy (DE) Programme.
Source: Meld

Interactive Newsprint

Interactive paper is a type of “smart” paper. It is responsive to a human touch – the images or text printed on it can change, or play a sound once a certain area on the surface is pressed. This means that sheets of paper can turn into interactive displays. For example, imagine a community news poster with an interactive title. This could be designed to advertise and illustrate articles read aloud at the push of embedded buttons around the edge of the poster. The title text could show the times of forthcoming community events or meetings. Alternatively, imagine a home notice board display or picture frame containing active paper to which community club members could broadcast club news in short SMS text messages and voicemails.







“Can Printed Electronics Save the Music Industry?”
While we were working on our last ULAB project, Sweet Tweet, I was invited to take part in a panel discussion at SXSW in Austin, Texas to discuss a mashup of electronics, print and indie music. We didn’t just want to blab about it, we wanted to create some demonstrators that enabled people to get an idea of what the technology could do.




2012-03-13

The Startram Project

Maglev track could launch spacecraft into orbit

(PhysOrg.com) -- With the aim to make it easier to launch spacecraft into low Earth orbit (LEO), two researchers have turned to maglev technology to catapult a payload hundreds of miles above the Earth. While the concept may sound far-fetched, the researchers argue that the potential benefits to humanity far outweigh the costs.



StarTram - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



StarTram is a proposal for a maglev space launch system. The initial Generation 1 facility would be cargo only, launching from a mountain peak at 3 km to 7 km altitude with an evacuated tube staying at local surface level; it has been claimed that 150,000 tons could be lifted to orbit annually. More advanced technology would be required for the Generation 2 system for passengers, with a longer track instead gradually curving up at its end to the thinner air at 22 km altitude, supported by magnetic levitation, reducing g-forces when each capsule transitions from the vacuum tube to the atmosphere. A SPESIF 2010 presentation stated that Gen-1 could be completed by the year 2020+ if funding began presently, Gen-2 by 2030+.[1]

Startram Technology - Startram


Maglev for Acceleration of Launch Vehicles



Magnetically Suspended Superconducting Cables



Magneto Hydrodynamic (MHD) Pumps



High-strength Structural Tethers


Startram - maglev train to low earth orbit

Sandia National Laboratories has carried out a '"murder-squad" investigation of the Startram concept, whose purpose is to find any flaw in a proposed project. They gave Startram a clean bill of health. Estimates suggest that building a passenger-capable Startram would require 20 years and a construction budget (ignoring inflation and overoptimism) of about $60 billion.

Why take on such an enormous project? Simple - $50 per kilogram amortized launch costs. The total worldwide cost of developing and using rocket-based space travel is more than $500 billion. The Space Shuttle program cost about $170 billion. The International Space Station has cost about $150 billion to date. As yet, we are making very little commercial use of near-Earth space beyond deployment of communication and imaging satellites. Reducing the LEO insertion costs a hundredfold should finally start our commercial exploitation of the special resources of space. Not to mention making orbital hotels a travel goal for middle-class tourists!


2012-03-11

Samsung Flexible OLED Display

Samsung flexible OLED gadgets incoming this year - SlashGear

Samsung is mass producing flexible OLED displays for products still on track for release in 2012, the company has confirmed, though the exact extent to which they actually bend will depend on more than just the panels themselves. Samsung Mobile Display’s assistant president confirmed the sales plans this week, Asia Economy Park News reports, insisting that “flexible displays will be commercialized within a year.” The initial implementations are expected to include smartphones and tablets.




DailyTech - New Samsung Flexible Display Patent Detailed

Foldable displays use plastic rather than glass as a substrate for the displays. The plastic allows a flexible display to be bent, folded, or rolled opening up the possibility of smartphones that are curved like bracelets or can be rolled up into a very thin profile. The patent in question showed images of just such a device with a screen that rolls up into a cylindrical holder.  
The displays can into electronic newspapers, while keeping the same features that are used to in rigid screens. One of the benefits of these flexible screens compared to rigid screens will be very apparent to any smartphone user who has dropped their device and crushed the screen.  
The flexible displays will be able to absorb the shock and bend rather than cracking and breaking, making a more robust screen that is lighter at the same time. According to the patent, the flexible display will be based on a substrate of flexible plastic, metal foil, thin glass, or other thin and flexible material. The patent also notes some the target products for the screens.



A Samsung Flexible Display Patent Emerges, Products due in 2013 - Patent Bolt

The display of patent FIG. 3A may be bent, folded or crooked with respect to a predetermined bending central line seen above as patent point #51. The sensor unit 20 may detect a degree of bending of the flexible display unit as the predetermined bending angle. If the unit is abused or not in use for a given amount of time, the power supply will shut off automatically.



Samsung's patent FIG. 3B simply illustrates the condition where the flexible display apparatus is substantially folded. In that particular bended state, it sure looks like it's mimicking a folded book, don't you think? Considering that Samsung earlier listed the possibility of using an electrophoretic display in an electronic book as one of their possible end user products, it's not much of a stretch at all to envision this being used as such in the future. A few other interesting concept designs have been leaked over time,  such as  this one.

Samsung Flexible AMOLED coming to a Phone near you in 2012 | OMG!Droid


The flexible display, we are looking to introduce sometime in 2012, hopefully the earlier part, said Samsung spokesman Robert Yi