Meet HoloFlex, a Holographic, Flexible Smartphone

Researchers at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada, have developed what they call the "world's first holographic flexible smartphone."

Aptly dubbed HoloFlex, the device features a 1,920-by-1,080 full high-definition Flexible Organic Light Emitting Diode (FOLED) touch-screen display, and is capable of rendering 3D images and videos that multiple people can simultaneously view without the need for cumbersome glasses.

"HoloFlex offers a completely new way of interacting with your smartphone," Roel Vertegaal, professor of human-computer interaction at Queen's University's School of Computing, said in a statement. "It allows for glasses-free interactions with 3D video and images in a way that does not encumber the user."

The device renders images into 12-pixel circles, which are then projected through a 3D-printed microlens array consisting of more than 16,000 fisheye lenses. The result is a modest 160-by-104 resolution 3D image, which users can inspect from any angle by simply rotating the phone.

The researchers say a number of applications can benefit from HoloFlex technology, from 3D modeling to holographic gaming.

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"In a game such as Angry Birds, for example, users would be able to bend the side of the display to pull the elastic rubber band that propels the bird," according to a news release. "When the bird flies across the screen, the holographic display makes the bird literally pop out of the screen in the third dimension."

As for other specs, the phone runs a 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor, 2GB of memory, and Android 5.1.