Samsung Future is Now: Flexible Screen Device to Launch in 2012 [VIDEO]

Apple and Samsung have been going back and forth during 2011 for the entire year, and now, with the holiday shopping season looming, the smartphone war is heating up fast. Both companies have debuted new smartphones and operating systems in October, and now word has come that Samsung is currently outselling Apple in worldwide sales.

Time to take the fight to the next level. Samsung announced that it may be ready to debut a smartphone and tablet computer in 2012 that features a flexible, bendable screen. The technology debuted in June, but now the company says it is ready to begin mass producing devices that make use of the futuristic technology, PCWorld said in a blog post.

The organic light-emitting diode-based display could be featured on a regular smartphone before it comes out in a version where people could actually bend it. It could serve as a kind of a safety feature, where it would be much more difficult to break the display if dropped or thrown by accident.

Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia also unveiled a bendable screen at this week's Nokia World conference in London, although its version is more like a prototype and not as far along in development as the Samsung version. Below are videos showing both, and the Nokia one actually shows the screen bending back and forth. Instead of a touch screen, you can control the device by bending it. Bend it toward you to zoom out and bend it away to zoom in.

For Samsung, it's the second revelation in just a week's time, as only one day earlier, U.K.-based Strategy Analytics revealed that Samsung had outsold Apple smartphones in 2011's third quarter. Coincidentally, Nokia is the world leader in mobile phone manufacturing, but Samsung is now number one in smartphones. Below are two videos showing off the Samsung screens, and below that, a video of Nokia's prototype. Let us know in the comments if you think the bendable screen is just a gimmick or if you think it's the next big thing.