The new trend for digital screens is for them to be able to bend and roll into a tube. Apparently, Google wants them to be tearable too now. In a recently published patent filing, the inventors had detailed a very original device that users can rip, and then reattach together. Whenever the screen is physically modified, the contents it shows are modified too. To illustrate the effect, Google used a notice for a lost dog. When the screen is intact, the flier displays a dog but when it is torn, the smaller piece shows the dog’s picture along with a contact number.

Google’s patent filing was first found by the founder of a legal software firm ClientSide, Mikhail Avady. Avady states that the patent is the turning point for next generation screens because it shows two long-promised concepts of sci-fi – disposable and modular displays.

During CES earlier this year one of the world’s biggest makers of cutting edge digital screens, Samsung, showed off ways that modular displays could soon become a reality. Using a number of smaller screens pushed together, Samsung create a huge multi-screen complex. While disposable displays remain a pipe dream for now and won’t emerge in the main stream market as viable, cost-effective technology, engineers have been figuring out ways to transfer pixels onto paper. When asked for a comment on the patent, Google coyly admitted that while it may hold the patent, it may remain an idea and never be implemented or it can mature into a full-blown product in the future.