Curved high-definition televisions have yet to make it into the living rooms of most Americans, but Samsung is already taking the next step in TV technology: a bendable HD screen.
In addition to the two new series of curved TVs the South Korean manufacturer debuted at the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show this week, Samsung showed off an 85-inch LED LCD Ultra-HD model that bends its flat screen into a curve at the push of a remote-control button.
Small servo motors bend the liquid crystal display screen, backlight, filter and frame to a screen size matching newly emerging curved HDTVs, and then bends back to flat again at the user’s command.
Curved screens enhance the immersive effect of HDTVs, many of which will begin to feature 4,000 pixel resolution (commonly referred to as 4k or Ultra-HD) in curved displays. Though the benefits of a bendable screen seem minimal (getting rid of a glare or enhancing the view for multiple viewers in one room), Samsung indicated that the point of the model was to showcase the new possibilities of TV technology.
Samsung declined to hint at the possible price range of a retail model in the future.
WATCH: Samsung’s bendable TV