Ultra-thin speaker wins Wall Street Journal award
Taipei - A paper-thin loudspeaker invented by Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) has won the Wall Street Journal's technology innovation award, the institute said Friday.
The product, called fleXpeaker, won the Consumer Electronics award, one of the 16 Technology Innovation Awards awarded each year by the Wall Street Journal, ITRI said on its website.
The speaker is just 1 millimetre thick, can bend and be made from various materials. It is light-weight and saves electricity, the ITRI said.
"It is an array of micro cells which can be made with various materials, like paper, plastic, transparent plastic and metal," said Chen Ming-tao, head of the research team.
"There is a wide range of uses for it as the fleXpeaker can be rolled out like we print newspaper and its size can be cut to different sizes, even to 1 or 2 kilometres long," he said.
ITRI, has applied for a patent and plans to market it next year.
"A Taiwan auto company is cooperating with us to use fleXpeaker in their cars, to save the space taken up by traditional loudspeakers," Chen said.
Several companies are working to develop ultra-thin - or "invisible" - loudspeakers, but ITRI was the first to have launched a paper-thin loudspeaker, he added.(dpa)