Origami Godzilla by Seiji Nishikawa

Who knew Origami, that ancient Japanese art of folding pieces of paper has its finger on the pulse when it comes to science, technology, gadget design and all things generally innovative?

Origami has helped out when scientists were still scratching their heads about how to pack large equipment such as (PDF)space lenses, and here , space sails for a satellite and even in the medical field with (PDF) stents.

But for people into gadgets on terra firma, the concept cellphones of Electronic Ink were a hit for their beautiful, sleek futuristic designs that incorporated a fold out origami screen that expanded on scarce phone real estate.
Left:The popular origami concept phone with expanding screen

Here´s one that wasn´t quite so universally adored, the SD910 from South Korea Telecom.
Criticised for its brain teaser style way of unfolding, critics were wondering how the heck to put it back together again. That, and also the folding parts would get stuck and generally did badly at surviving in people´s bags.

From there the trail grows cold when looking for a more recent origami cellphone model..

But there are newer (if somewhat boxier) technologies that have come out in cellphones since.
Maybe it´s not origami per se, but it is about packing things in and out to make the best use of space.

Like this example, the Readius mobile phone, from Polymyr Vision that has an e-paper display that folds in and out of the mobile handset.

The phone was set for 2008 release and could ¨display electronic books and play MP3 files. In addition, it supports W-CDMA and HSDPA, enabling both phone call and data communication. Mounted with a Li-ion secondary battery of approximately 1,100mAh, it operates for about 30 hours per charge¨

Would you get one?
Do you know of any other more recent origami type cellphones, and do they have a future?

Origami phone by Electronic Ink via Gadget Review
ZiA