I saw Samsung's stretchable Micro LED display at CES – and it made my mind run amok

When I first laid eyes on Samsung’s stretchable Micro LED display concept, I was taken back to when my childhood self watched The Ring. Seeing that infamous scene of a creature crawling out from within the TV led to many, many sleepless nights as a six-year-old. 

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Like that movie scene, seeing subjects physically push out of the Samsung display concept is polarizing and disruptive, like something that shouldn’t be possible. But it is.

That’s the sole purpose of Samsung Display, the Korean electronics giant’s innovation arm dedicated to producing screen concepts like monitors, tablets, and commercial displays. The stretchable Micro LED is the latest product that the company is pitching to similarly ambitious manufacturers. 

While Samsung Display is responsible for producing the concept and, eventually, supplying it, it’s on the partnering manufacturer to realize the potential.

With the stretchable Micro LED concept, which is so novel that the company can only present it in a 7×5-inch frame, there are certainly some creative use cases. While Samsung’s demo looped videos of The Sphere and a great white shark crashing into the screen, my mind first went to the accessibility implications, such as a smartphone or tablet with pop-up buttons. 

That can also apply to car infotainment systems, especially with the rise of digital buttons (and disdain towards them).

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If we’re thinking even more broadly — since this is a Micro LED panel that we’re working with — perhaps a digital billboard where the content physically comes out? The sky (or budget of manufacturers) is the limit here.

While I don’t expect to see the stretchable Micro LED technology in public any time soon — we’re looking at around five or more years, a Samsung Display executive tells me — it’s always very exciting to check out what concepts are being worked on. 

That’s what makes shows like CES so meaningful, and it’s the reason why I always fly back from Las Vegas feeling like my existing tech gadgets are starting to feel old.