14 DAY TRIAL // A manufacturer would not begin mass production of a certain device or component if it wasn't sure it had buyers, which means that consumer electronics device vendors do want flexible items out on sale as soon as possible.
It might have seemed a bit more far off last year, but flexible displays won't let themselves be waited upon for too long.
If DDaily is right, then Samsung is almost ready to ship those flexible AMOLED screens we mentioned a couple of time before.
For those who need a reminder, the company filed a patent for bendable and rollable panels back in march and was expected to have such things up for order in 2012 since a while before that.
More recently, we learned of the Youm name that the corporation would be employing.
Now, the DDaily report mentioned above is implying that initial production will start this quarter (3Q12) and at least one device with a Youm panel will be unleashed before the year is out.
Don't be too excited though. Samsung may be giving the green light to the Youm, but the first batch won't actually be flexible. Although they will be very thin, at 0.6 mm, they will be protected by inflexible glass.
Still, if nothing else, 0.6 mm is a third of what current-generation AMOLED is capable of (1.8mm), so at least there is the assurance that Youm devices will be thinner, if not possible to safely deform just yet.
Hopefully, the next several months will bring at least a prototype or two models that truly flex, for demonstrative purposes if nothing else. If they don't, we might have to wait until CES 2013 in early January for something of the sort.
In any event, Samsung has, as internal goal, to see the technology mature by 2014. There should be a steady stream of malleable gadgets by then.