"Morph" Concept Phone Bends, Twists, Cleans Itself

Picture this: a thin, flexible, nanotech-infused phone that you can fold in half, wrap around your wrist, and even douse with honey.

The "Morph" concept device isn't quite ready for prime time; researchers from Nokia and the University of Cambridge in England admit that they've only developed "bits and pieces" of the would-be phone, according to PC World (via Yahoo! News).

That said, a video of the "Morph" handset in action looks pretty enticing.

The animation shows a woman chatting on a translucent green phone, which she then wraps around her wrist (a sliding control locks the new shape into place) while still talking over a clip-on headset. Next, she unwraps her new "bracelet," opens it into a thin, paperback-sized flat panel, takes a snapshot of her patterned red purse (framing the image through the translucent panel, natch), selects the picture as her wallpaper, and wraps the phone—which, like a chameleon, takes on the red pattern of the snapshot—back onto her wrist.

Finally, the woman pours a little honey onto the phone; the drops of honey simply roll off, leaving the device (presumably) clean as a whistle.

What's the secret? Nanotechnology, of course. (You can get more details from the just-launched "Design and the Elastic Mind" exhibit on the Museum of Modern Art's Web site).

Pretty sweet, although on a reality scale of 1-to-10 ("10" being sci-fi land), we're talking a 9.5 here. Still, researchers are saying that the "Morph" concept (or certain aspects of it, at least) could actually appear on "high-end" phones and devices within seven years.

Related: Researchers Envision Mobile Device That Morphs [PC World, via Yahoo! News]