@smudges, cool. Thanks. So they are not flattening rounded tubes of pasta. They’re forming flat units that assemble themselves into tubes while cooking, kind of like those moving boxes that come flat and you give them a smack or a shake and they fall into shape as a container. That’s pretty amazing! I bet it was fun to invent these.
I can also picture people standing around a pot and tossing in a few pieces at a time just to watch them curl up into macaroni tubes. (I wonder what happens when pieces get crossed up and try to curl into each other.)
The article itself misstates what they do. The pieces are not “unfurling” when they roll up. Unfurling means opening up, unrolling, like a sail or a flag. These bits of pasta are furling.
@RedDeerGuy1, thanks for yet another oddly intriguing question.