The smartphone prototype, called PaperPhone is best described as a flexible iPhone — it does everything a smartphone does, like store books, play music or make phone calls. But its display consists of a 9.5 cm diagonal thin film flexible E Ink display. The flexible form of the display makes it much more portable that any current mobile computer: it will shape with your pocket.

Dr. Vertegaal will unveil his paper computer on May 10 at 2 pm at the Association of Computing Machinery’s CHI 2011 (Computer Human Interaction) conference in Vancouver — the premier international conference of Human-Computer Interaction.

Being able to store and interact with documents on larger versions of these light, flexible computers means offices will no longer require paper or printers.