The gadget world must be suffering from a spate of body image problems — thin phones, thin batteries, thin fans and now… thin speakers? I don’t mean those fancy tall, skinny ones you see these days, no, it’s Fujifilm’s “Beat” speakers that you can roll up like a sheet of paper.
Announced at Japan’s nano tech 2013 expo, the Beat speakers are essentially a bendable diaphragm constructed of a material that mixes a “visco-elastic polymer” with “piezoelectric ceramics”. according to Tech-On, this material solidifies when exposed to a specific frequency range, 20Hz to 20kHz.
Fujifilm showed off a model that retracts into a canister (image above), as well as one that resembles a traditional Japanese folding fan (visible in the background).
Tech-On doesn’t mention pricing, availability, or indeed, the quality of the sound, but if we’ll be able to roll up our phones and displays in the future, heck, why not speakers too?
[Tech-On]
Image: Tech-On