Cambridge Geniuses Invent Practical Digital Scroll

In a few years, your PDA might be the size of a typical soda straw. That’s apparently the idea behind this nifty working roll-up LCD that some smartypants at Cambridge have come up with.

At less than 1mm thick, and flexible, it rolls up to about the same diameter as the cardboard from a roll of paper towels. It’s still an early prototype, and is currently only capable of displaying black and white, but this could make the upcoming eBook war fairly interesting.

It’s powered by batteries, and the electronics that operate the unit are contained in wooden (!?) handles at the sides. Inevitably, they’ll find a way to make a smaller, color version. When that happens, and they add WiFi/Bluetooth/EVDO/WiMax/Voodoo/Scientology to the mix, you’ll potentially see a whole marketplace centered around like devices.

Roll up this laptop [C|Net]