Telecom Italia, the leading network in Italy teamed up with Polymer Vision in order to provide the world's first mobile device with a rollable display, at the moment going under the name of Cellular-Book.

The handset will be presented to the public at 3GSM next week and is based on Polymer Vision's Readius concept, using a rolling display technology.

The main advantage of this technology is that it allows producers to include a much larger screen than the handset itself and the screen can be rolled back in when it's not in use. The readability of the screen is very similar to printed paper.

It displays 16 grey-levels on a high contrast and can unfortunately not be used in the dark due to lack of backlighting. The device will of course be much smaller than a typical phone while the display will measure as much as 5 inches.

With this device, users will be able to read full newspapers or books that can be downloaded and stored on the 4GB memory. Aside from that, it will feature EDGE and UMTS support and a mini-USB slot for PC data connection and can be used with a regular SIM card.

The mobile phone can be operated through a touch sensitive interface and it apparently is also pretty low on power consumption, lasting for approximately 10 days on a single charge. As mentioned before, customers will be able to play with this new device at the 3GSM on the 12th of February.

The two companies' future developments will also include a color and moving image display. Cellular-Book will initially be available in Italy and probably head towards other regions as time goes by.