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Bondi is a smart little hanger with astonishing multi functions. According to your real needs, the Bondi can be used to hold a wide range of things, including your cellphones, keys, or even your books. With its flexible but practical design, Bondi can be used anywhere too, such as in your cars, on your bicycles, in your kitchen and so on. The possibilities are endless- as you think of a new possibility, the Bondi then manages to make it true.

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Work smarter, not merely harder. FLEXiT is an ultra-flexible light that can be wrapped around tubes, bent into tight corners or magnetically fastened onto metal objects to serve as different types of lights: table light, camping light, work light, directional light and so on. Except for it adjustable shapes, the FLEXiT’s light functions can be changed too, offering low, medium and high light according to your various needs.

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Audio Wrap is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a bag wrapped with flexible speaker on the surface, allowing the users to enjoy music in a more convenient and fashionable way. The flexible speaker adopted to make these bags is developed by the governmental Industrial Technology Research Institute of Taiwan, and it can produce the same volume as a small mobile speaker. So, when you wanna listen to music on the go, play your bag!

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New developments have been found in the Electronic Skin field, because researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley Lab have created both flexible and stretchable electronic skin using semiconductor-enriched carbon nano tubes. The electronic skin is proved capable of detecting and responding to touch, and expected to provide lithography-free fabrication of low-cost flexible and stretchable electronics in the future in combination with inkjet printing of metal contacts.

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Robots are no more solid and cold machines as we’ve ever known. From Harvard University, the new robot is an ambidextrous automation featuring flexible polymers. Its inspiration comes from starfish, worms and squid, and thus the robot is built with inflatable chambers within its legs and central spine to help it move.

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The first high-efficiency OLED on plastic was claimed by researchers from the University of Toronto recently, which is deemed as an important development that may lead to more durable and “impact-resistant” displays. The flexible OLEDs were invented by adding 50-100 nm thin layer of tantalum oxide onto plastic, thus to achieve the same refractive index as that of heavy metal-doped glass. The new technology is believed to be producing OLEDs with a low cost, while promoting the efficiency and durability of OLEDs in the meanwhile.

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Metal seems cold while wood makes you warm? Well, then welcome you to a new age that prefers folding wood as iPad cases, cellphone cases, or laptop cases. The folding wood is made by a Dutch digital manufacturing company Snijlab, who uses laser cutting technique to make tiny cuts on wood sheets and thus makes them fully bent in all directions without breaking.

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Can solar cells become as flexible as paper or fabric? The answer from a MIT group is “yes”. Instead of producing solar cells, the researchers actually printed solar cells onto fabric or paper substrate, thus making the cells quite flexible. On the other hand, this technology reduces the production costs as well.

With the innovation of design concepts and the progress of technology, remote controller is now approaching its new period that features great changes in both appearance and functionality. The Leaf Grip Remote Controller by Murata is a creative one that requires the users to control their TVs with a bending and twisting motion. Furthermore, it is built with a photovoltaic cell, providing the device with a battery-less feature.

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“Just Fold It” is a flexible and portable room divider that fits in different locations. Its unique design allows the room divider to be adjusted by adding some extra modules. The product is wind-resistant too, as there’re some perforations built on the surface. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Did back discomfort ever annoy you when you just sat before computers to visit the I New Idea? If so, we need to apologize and we really wish we would have found this Koala HUG Lumbar Support for you much earlier. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Researchers from Queen’s University in Kingston have invented a thinnest cellphone we’ve ever met. It looks no thinner than a credit card and features a good flexibility that allows the users to bend it in various ways. Moreover, as you bend it, you’re actually controlling the phone: making a corner to bookmark a page or flipping the corner to get a new page. Really amazing and possibly such “bend gestures” method will be an overwhelming trend of the future too. [Read the rest of this entry...]

In ancient China people used to write on silk when there was no paper created, while nowadays researchers from Taiwan still prefer to use silk as basic materials for e-reader displays. The process begins with “liquid silk”, which is turned into insulating membranes to make the TFT (thin-film transistor) screens. These new e-reader displays are not only flexible, bendy but also cheap compared to existing ones. As a result, we may conveniently roll up e-readers just as we roll up books or newspapers, sounds really amazing! [Read the rest of this entry...]

As more and more designers take care of the living environment of the disabled, Kaylene Kau also shows concern and brings out this new Prosthetic Arm. It is announced to perform as well as men’s hands, bending flexibly to get the users their needed items. In other words the Prosthetic Arm is just as smart as an elephant’s trunk, so that would be quite an important help to the disabled people.

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We humans are really clever: we put our foot into the waste basket to compress the discarded paper, so as to make room for trash. But apparently the designers are much clever, as they’ve collaborated with a flexible waste bin that allows the users to make room for trash much more quickly and neatly. When the basket is almost full of paper, you simply need to get its mouth together and compress the trash, and you’ll find more room is made once you release its mouth to let the bin will then go back to its original shape. Fantastic!

Dubbed Push Up, the flexible waste bin is an iF Concept Design 2010 winner. [Read the rest of this entry...]