Ever the innovator when it comes to oddly shaped displays, LG has unveiled a stretchable display that can expand up to 50 percent, the company announced on Sunday.

The display can be “freely transformed into any shape,” meaning you should be able to stretch, fold, or twist it as you like without damaging it. LG says that, thanks to usage of a tiny micro-LED light source (up to 40 micrometers), the display has improved durability, allowing it to be stretched more than 10,000 times.

The display opens up the possibility for entirely new types of interfaces.
Credit: LG

LG unveiled a prototype with a 12-inch screen that can be stretched up to 18 inches. It’s not some crappy display either; it’s a true RGB display with a 100 ppi (pixel per inch) resolution.

This is not the first time LG has shown a stretchy display, but the new one is 20-50 percent stretchier than the prototype shown in 2022.

This type of tech isn’t something that will just show up on the market on its own. Instead, it will likely be applied to specific use cases, where there’s a need of a display that can conform to different shapes and sizes. LG thinks it could be “widely applied” in industries such as fashion, wearables, and mobility.

For now, it’s just something that looks incredibly cool. LG provided a few examples of how it could work in practice. In one short video (above), the display is shown overlaid over a three-dimensional, interactive automotive interface that changes shape as you interact with it.

There’s no word when we might see this applied in a real-world, wide-use scenario.