Cellular-Book Sports Rollable Screen

A new device set to go on sale in Italy later this year offers a 5-inch, roll-out screen for reading ebooks and downloaded content, even in bright sunlight.

Polymer Vision and Telecom Italia have announced plans to introduce the confusingly-named “Cellular-Book,” which—thought not offering phone features—will be the first device to feature a rollable display on personal portable device intended for digital content distribution. Unfurled, the rollable display measures five inches across and, the company claims, is as readable as a printed page in broad daylight. The display uses an electronic ink technology (apparently from E-Ink) on a flexible plastic substrate

Polymer Vision and Telecom Italia see the Cellular-Book as a delivery mechanism for digital content, ranging from full-fledged ebooks to personalized data like email, news, and maps downloaded via cellular (EDGE/UMTS) and broadcast (DVB-H) technologies. The device’s screen offers 16 levels of grey (versions supporting color and moving images are planned for the future), and the Cellular-Book will also have the ability to play music and podcasts. The initial models will store up to 4 GB of data, and Polymer Vision says the devices will get up to 10 days of usage on a single battery charge.

Polymer Vision is showing the Cellular-Book at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona next week, although there are no details yet on when the unit might be rolled out in Italy (or other markets), what it might cost, or what content services might be available. But we have to admit it’s a pretty neat idea to have a device smaller than a typical cell phone: when we want to read something, just pull it out of our pocket, unroll the screen, and wind up with a very readable display.