A paper-thin flexible loudspeaker, dubbed FleXpeaker, developed by the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), recently won the Wall Street Journal’s (WSJ) 2009 Technology Innovation Award in the Consumer Electronics category.
ANY SIZE
FleXpeaker is an array of tiny, bendable speakers that can be combined to produce high-fidelity speaker systems of almost any size, making it the world’s thinnest, lightest and most flexible speaker.
In a statement released yesterday, the ITRI said that because the FleXpeaker is lightweight and consumes little power, it could be used in cellphones or car audio systems.
Other possible applications include giant banners that could be used to deliver public-service announcements in train stations or advertising messages in shopping malls.
It can also be incorporated into clothing and consumer packaging and can be cut with scissors into any shape, ITRI said.
“ITRI is seeking to license the technology or create a spinoff company to commercialize the product,” the ITRI statement said.
Chan Yi-jen (詹益仁), general director of ITRI’s Electronics & Optoelectronic Research Laboratories, who led the speaker project, traveled to San Francisco to receive the internationally acclaimed award on Tuesday.
BREAKTHROUGH
At the award presentation ceremony, WSJ news editor John Leger praised FleXpeaker as a revolutionary technology.
“The judges believe that this looks like a significant breakthrough in speaker design. They haven’t seen anything like this before,” Leger said.
The WSJ announced that the FleXpeaker had won the global Technology Innovation Award on Sept. 14, beating out high-profile companies such as HP, Livescribe and Motorola.
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