Wouldn't it be great if you could roll up your iPad when finished with it and tuck it under your arm like a newspaper? Well that futuristic idea might not be far off...

Scientists at the Department of Energy's Berkeley Lab in the US have created a latticework of carbon-nanotube enriched semiconductors so pliant that they can be wrapped around a baseball. The new technology could be developed into an e-skin capable of knowing and responding to where it is touched, as well be used to make a flexible and stretchable electronic device.

This development could also see smart sensing find its way into a number of different surfaces and materials over the coming years. We might see flexible solar panels, sensor-aware medical bandages or even e-skin being used by the military under armour. It could also prove disruptive for many other sectors, such as e-textile research. Present e-textile's have been limited by the significant cost barriers of flexible computing but have already innovatively incorporated computational sensing/ubiquitous computing into our quotidian fabrics and haberdashery. As ever, we look forward to seeing how people and industries will use the new technology.