Lucid Moments: the nanoSteps Tech Blog!

2008 March 11: Nokia's Morph Concept

My friend Tom Smith, a retired engineer, was kind enough to bring Nokia's Morph concept to my attention. (Follow the link above to see the video.) Morph is a joint research effort by the Nokia Research Center in Japan and Cambridge University in the UK to demonstrate possible uses of shape-changing nanotech materials.


Many future products may be made of materials that have the ability to change shape & function in real-time depending on the user's need.


Changing the shape of materials relates to an anticipated nanotech capability to insert both computational and robotic facilities within and between the many layers of a material, potentially hundreds of layers in a millimeter. The embedded computers react to the user's selections to perform the requested function and, if appropriate, to direct the robotic components to change the shape of the device.


This concept video is much like the auto industry's concept cars. The actual product, if ever produced, may use some of the ideas, but may not look like the concept as presented.


The device shown in the video acts as a phone, an internet appliance, a computer, mobile laboratory, and several other devices , in short, a multi-purpose information and communication device.


Such materials don't really exist yet except in some very rudimentary forms that are still in the lab. Eventually they could be used for single-stage to orbit aerospace vehicles that change shape depending on the altitude and environment in which they are being "flown".


Autos could be built with such materials to make fender-bender accidents a short term inconvenience rather than an expensive repair because the material could be reshaped to its intended form by the internal computers & robotics. If something were broken (such as a headlight), the repair would be easier, because the material could be reshaped into a "repair" configuration to make the actual replacement of the headlight easier, faster, and therefore, less expensive.


That's what I know about these ideas today.


Slick. Possible. But, an early concept and not yet a real product.


Additional information:
2008 Feb 25: Nokia's Morph concept webpage
2008 Feb 25: Nokia's Press Release