Flexible battery coming for smartphones?

We all have been looking forward to seeing what kind of handset design might come out of Samsung's work on developing a flexible AMOLED screen. There were reports last month that Samsung is ready to produce these bendable displays starting this quarter. The only drawback to a display that moves like Gumby is finding a battery that is just as easy to flex. It looks as though the search might be over thanks to the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.

Under Professor Keon Jae Lee, the Institute has developed a battery than can bend, twist and fold without losing power or performance. You can click on the video below to see the direction that smartphone batteries might be taking. and while you might think that these flexible parts are being developed to make devices that more easily fold up in your pocket, the main concept is to develop parts less likely to break under certain circumstances.

The flexible batteries are lithium-ion, rechargeable and are printed on thin film. There is no precise word on how far away we are from seeing this employed in a consumer gadget, although Professor Lee says that we will see it used in "next-generation fully flexible electronic systems."

source: TechCrunch