Asus Shows Laptop Sharing Concept

— -- At this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Asus took the wraps off a number of new products, such as a touchscreen netbook with a swivel hinge, a redesigned Eee PC keyboard, and a 12-inch netbook with a 512 GB solid-state hard drive. All of these are product you'll be able to buy in the not-too-distant future.

But Asus is showing off more than just products. The company also is using CES to display a clever concept: Laptops that can share resources with other close-by laptops. Asus calls the concept "Fold/Unfold."

It works like this: Whenever two notebooks are placed close together, they would be able to share resources such as the processor and memory. And, when the two are placed directly together, they can share an interface and even their battery.

Fold/Unfold is only a concept, so there's no guarantee that such a product would ever see the light of day. And there are some security issues that would need to be ironed out, too. But it's a cool idea, and may have some practical real-world uses, such as in schools.

For all the latest CES news, check out our complete coverage of CES 2009.