nerdalerts

The US Army recently dropped $50 million beans into Arizona State University’s pockets in order to help fund the research of the flexible display technology. Bringing total investment by the Army to over $100 million since 2004.

Now, that may seem like an incredibly high number, the rewards and possible applications for this project could be immense. Apparently it can be sewn into clothing, vehicles and all that. Meaning that a soldier out in the wilderness (see desert) would be able to look simply down at his wrist and see a gps-type map showing location/coordinates, or allowing real-time order changes while engaged in a battle.

These screen not only require less power than LCD screens, but are quite a bit more durable too.

But, what’s better than military use is that once released into consumer markets these could have countless applications. I think the best app would be the ability to sew them into a sleeve and use them as a pda/cell phone, a body monitor (heart rate, etc), or an mp3 player.

They seem to really be an iteration of the Pip-boys from the fictional “Fallout” universe. Which were computers on your wrist. Price tags on such devices would probably be immense.

this sketch by MIT shows what I mean

Do you think this is a good venture for the military to persue? Or just a pipe-dream?