click to enlarge
Do not fold, spindle or mutilate. Those instructions were
once printed on punch cards that fed data to mainframe computers. Today’s smart
phones process more data, but they still weren’t built for being shoved into
back pockets.
In the quest to build gadgets that can survive such abuse,
engineers have been testing electronic systems based on new materials that are
both flexible and switchable – that is, capable of toggling between two
electrical states: on-off, one-zero, the binary commands that can program all
things digital.