The first Galaxy Note is described as some as a phablet, finding an odd middle ground between phones and tablets. Then, you have devices like the Sony Tablet P, which folds up into a phone-sized device when not in use, but can fold open to reveal a full tablet experience. The thing is neither of this is particularly ideal for people who want both a true smartphone and a true tablet experience.

Turning to designer Patrik Eriksson, we find what he calls the Pocket Tablet Concept. It’s meant to be “a happy marriage between a smartphone and… a tablet.” The key here is the utilization of flexible OLED technology. In closed form, the Pocket Tablet concept will look like most other Android smartphones these days, except the display is virtually edge-to-edge. However, you can unravel the device to reveal about double the screen real estate for a tablet experience.

Based on these conceptual drawings, it looks like the second “half” of the display is constantly exposed as the back of the device, since it looks like the Pocket Tablet Concept folds onto itself like how you would fold back a paperback book. This initially left me wondering about the rear camera, but you’ll notice that the front plate seems to be slightly taller than the back plate. Presumably, the camera could fit in that spot.

Of course, the bigger challenge is figuring out how to get flexible OLED displays to this level where they are able to be completely folded over and still remain fully operational. It’s only a matter of time, I suppose, as we move toward more 7-inch tablets and more 5-inch phones, finding that “happy marriage” will hopefully come sooner rather than later.

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Display technology is advancing at breakneck speed. It wasn’t that long ago that we thought the idea of OLED technology or flexible displays was completely novel. Now, researchers at UCLA have come up with the world’s first fully stretchable OLED display. This is quite different from just being bendable.

That’s because they can take this strip of OLED and pull it, stretching that light to expand up to 45 percent along one axis. This flexible and stretchable property could make this kind of tech remarkably useful for applications like robotic skin and other embedded medical devices. They could be worn like skin-tight clothing, bringing us that much closer to the future we see in sci-fi movies.

To achieve this, the scientists took a plastic that emits light when electricity runs through it, and put that polymer between two layers of carbon nanotube electrode. The office laminating device pushed out the air bubbles and ensured the circuit would be complete. The exact science is certainly beyond me, but this proof of concept is pretty cool. It is just the first step, though, as the stretchable OLED currently only shows off a single band of color, which isn’t all that useful for displaying real information. However, as this tech gets better, who knows what’ll be grafted to our skin in the near future?

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The Toshiba flexible OLED display is three-inches in size and, like other flexible displays we’ve seen, it can flex and curve while retaining decent image quality. It helps that they’ve kept the display at just 0.1mm of thickness and a mere 1 gram of weight. They achieved this by attaching an oxide semiconductor TFT to a plastic substrate rather than a glass one, reducing weight by about 90%.

From what we can see, these flexible displays are only “flexible” at the moment, but as Toshiba works on making larger and slimmer versions of this tech, we could be seeing a whole new kind of product. We’re hearing that Toshiba aims for a “roll-up” tablet or some other sort of handheld by the year 2014 or 2015.

Personally, I’d be pretty happy with a display that rolls around my sleeve or something… and it has to be a touchscreen. We all love touchscreens.

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