PaperPhone: A new age smartphone?

Canadian researchers have developed an interactive paper phone, as thin and flexible as a credit card, which they believe will pave the way for future smartphones and tablets.

Called the PaperPhone, this prototype device allows you to do everything a smartphone does like store and read books, play music or make phone calls.

''This is the future. Everything is going to look and feel like this within five years,'' said creator Roel Vertegaal, the director of Queen's University Human Media Lab. ''This computer looks, feels and operates like a small sheet of interactive paper.''

PaperPhone features a 9.5 cm diagonal thin film flexible E Ink display that helps it take the shape of one's pocket, making it highly portable. Besides, the device uses no power when nobody is interacting with it.

The ultra thin phone though doesn't feature a touchscreen interface or buttons for standard operations like traditional smartphones but works by bending the phone in different ways to activate various functions.

''You can interact with it by bending it into a cell phone, flipping the corner to turn pages, or writing on it with a pen.''