Moments of Technology

Title - Overtasked and Too Much Tech!

Click here to hear me describe this Moment of Technology

Title - Manually Entering Data in a Scanner World

Click here to hear me describe this Moment of Technology

fleXpeaker - Fat Sound from a Skinny Speaker

How would you feel if the magazine you were reading were instead read itself to you? Better yet, what if an advertisement you were walking past on the street spoke out to you and offered you a deal on coffee down the road or told you about a sale around the corner? With the new technology developed by Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research (ITRI) Group, speakers just got cheaper, thinner and remarkably flexible. The new speakers, known as fleXpeakers, are both paper-thin and flexible, which makes their practical application virtually limitless.

ITRI, which has recently earned global recognition for its technology R&D efforts, began researching light-weight speakers in 2006. After creating very thin plastic speakers, the company broke out with the fleXspeaker by combining arrays of tiny speakers that, when combined, can produce a one millimeter thick speaker of any size. The razor-thin speaker requires only one-tenth the power of a typical speaker. This low energy consumption makes its combination with other technologies that consume greater power much more feasible. Imagine the possibilities of the fleXpeaker combined over or with a super-slim or flexible display. The image could change to the sounds being played or vice versa. Other potential applications include use in cell phones, car stereo systems, clothing, and movie theaters just to name a few.

Though the fleXpeaker has been criticized for being unable to support frequencies below 500Hz, a tone normally produced on a subwoofer, the speaker still maintains a range up to 20KHz. It can be easily mass-produced at a low cost in rolls, much like paper, and then cut to any shape or size. This year ITRI was awarded the Wall Street Journal’s prestigious Technology Innovation Award and is the world leading flat-speaker producer. Though several companies plan to bring a similar product to market later this year, none have the potential of the fleXspeaker. ITRI is currently working on a transparent version of fleXpeaker, which would be an even greater evolution of this already transformative product.

The next time you’re walking down the street don’t be surprised when a poster starts talking to you or when you lay your head down to a pillow that’s singing you to sleep! It’s just another of the many applications of fleXpeaker.