Inside HP Labs: 8 cool projects

At Hewlett-Packard Labs, projects such as a new substrate for flexible displays might make headlines one day, but will finally emerge as a shipping product only years later. Much of the HP research is directly tied to printing, imaging and server technology. This year, several ongoing projects reveal what's ahead for the 60-year-old company. All of the projects described below were developed in HP Labs. Some are exposed externally -- meaning they are available publicly -- but they were all birthed from HP Labs.