RIM patents strange looking “Appearance Adaptable Keypad”

With devices getting smaller and more powerful every year, RIM has come up with a possible solution and decided to file a patent for something called “Appearance Adaptable Keypad”. Basically it looks to be like a BlackBerry Pearl  – when used for a telephpone you will notice it has the standard alphanumeric keypad, then when you want to do e-mail you simply lift the hinges on either side of the device and it reveals a QWERTY keypad.

The design would be revolutionary if we were in the 1980’s, but I just cannot see this flying these days.