Display that bend and stretch: Some smartphones can now fold like a wallet. In a few years, you may wear one on your skin

Abstract

MOTOROLA DEMONSTRATED THE VERY first handheld mobile phone almost a half century ago. It was the size of a brick and weighed half as much. That prototype spawned the first commercial mobile phone a decade later. It, too, was ungainly, but it allowed a person to walk around while sending and receiving phone calls, which at that point was a great novelty. center dot Since then, mobile phones have acquired many other functions. They now have the ability to handle text messages, browse the Web, play music, take and display photos and videos, locate the owner on a map, and serve countless other uses-applications well beyond what anybody could have imagined when mobile phones were first introduced.