The Cubimorph will be presented in the upcoming International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

With modular smartphones like Google’s Project Ara and FairPhone being still in the works, a group of researchers from the University of Bristol have come up with a rather cunning plan to take over the smartphone market. Scientists from the University’s Interaction Group have come up with a new reconfigurable form of touch screen display, much like a Rubiks Cube.

Known in Bristol’s academic circle as the Cubimorph, the touch screen display is made up of six-sided display cubes that are daisy chained and can be repositioned, just like a Rubik’s Cube and a little more.

While demonstrating a prototype of the device, the research team made the display flat, like ordinarily seen in a smartphone, and then folded and reconfigured it into a shape of a game controller.

Or, just for kicks, you could also roll out the Cubimorph into a rectangular log with its postage size display being at one of its ends. This could even help users who were never good at special reasoning or origami. In fact the Cubimorph has a built-in algorithm that will help the user determine the best way to fold and twist the screen into a desired shape.

Before the geek in you fires up and compels you to snag one, as mentioned earlier, it’s still a prototype. It will be presented at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Stockholm, scheduled to take place sometime later this week.