"Triple-Screen" Phone Challenges Conventional Design

    An innovative “triple-screen” clamshell design is challenging the notions of how a smartphone should look and act, taking handsets beyond the traditional rectangular design.

Designed by Kristian Ulrich Larsen, through industrial design lab Yanko Design, the "flip" phone consists of three flexible touch screens that are linked with hinges of steel mesh, allowing it to fold into a number of novel configurations.

The device folds flat like a conventional smartphone for easy carrying. It can expand into a triangular formation that would make a good alarm clock or free-standing screen for watching videos, and content wraps around the screens when the phone is handled. It can morph into a mini-laptop shape with a backlit hardware keyboard exposed, or fold flat to be perfect for e-book reading or simply showing a ton of screen real estate.

"People no longer only use their phone as a comunication device. It's more and more used for the things, we usually use our laptops for, but with the limited screen real estate on phones, there are still boundaries for what you can do," Larsen said. "With the ability to expand your content onto multiple screens or having multiple apps running on separate screens, it's possible for the user to do a lot more productive, and creative things."

The theoretical device is depicted running Android, with some special tricks up its sleeve. Bringing two devices close to each other enables sharing by simply sliding an object on screen towards the destination handset, evoking a super-polished version of bump technologies popular apps.

Rather than a single notification LED, which some contemporary phones have sadly dropped altogether, the concept has eye-catching color-changing illuminated edges. Although flashy, it's not as original as the nokia concept phone shown last year that actually stood up on a desk to signal incoming calls and messages.

There are no plans to commercialize the flip concept anytime soon, but the tri-fold concept takes the smartphone beyond the standardized "glossy slab" model. Advances in materials science like ultra durable glass and flexible screens should free designers from constraints that have held them back for years -- all that remains is to imagine new directions to explore.