Yes, that paper-thin thing you see up there in the picture is a speaker. More specifically, it's Industrial Technology Research Institute's FleXpeaker.
ITRI sent over info about the speakers while company researchers demoed the product in the Bay Area and I must admit that it looks pretty cool. The Wall Street Journal apparently thought so, too, and named it one of its 2009 Technology Innovation Awards winners.
According to the company, FleXpeaker researchers basically found a way to create arrays of tiny, bendable speakers that can be put together to create high-fidelity speaker systems of basically any size. That gives the speaker plenty of potential for electronics devices, including tiny portable ones.
It can even be cut to any shape using scissors and incorporated to wearable clothing. So when somebody tells you that your shirt is loud in the near future, maybe it's because it actually is.
Photo © ITRI
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