Don't want to reach into a pocket or handbag whenever your phone rings? Nokia's on it: the company is funding research to create stretchable electronics that you could wear like a second skin. It could one day lead to phones that attach to the back of your hand, à la those wrist communcators in Babylon 5.
Stéphanie Lacour from the University of Cambridge is leading the research, showing off an extremely thin and bendable touchpad in the video below. Nokia is obvioulsy interested in applications in communication, and the logical conclusion is a phone — or at least part of a phone — that you could wear. Lacour says her team has already created a working nine-button touchpad that's thinner and more flexible than a fruit roll-up.
Theoretically, with bendy OLED screens all but commonplace, and some speakers literally paper-thin, there's nothing holding back the creation of a full-fledged smartphone that's maleable and wearable. Except for maybe that it's kind of gross.