NTT DoCoMo are of the opinion that your mobile phone is lacking a certain something – and that something is a flute. Yes, you read that correctly. The Japanese mobile giant has a set of prototype add-ons for its mobile phones that are, umm, different.
NTT DoCoMo has been providing high-quality online services via its range of mobile phones for years and has always ben at the leading edge of what it is possible to do with a mobile handset. Now, however, they may have gone a bit off-road in the R&D department.
NTT DoCoMo’s Institute for Advanced Technology has been the source of many mobile innovations over the years but they have really outdone themselves with a set of ‘hardware upgrades’ that bolt on to the shell of your phone and turn it into an entirely different device. The ebook reader (with scroll-out e-ink display) looks fantastic and the blood testing add-on could be a real boon for diabetics – this is the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that has put NTT DoCoMo right at the top.
And then there is the Flute. A two-piece add-on, the flute takes the form of a set of ‘keys’ that connect to the bottom of a candybar-shaped phone and a realistic looking metal ‘blowy bit’ (which Wikipedia assures us is called an embouchure). Why not just use a real flute, you ask? Well, those are fine and dandy – but when did a real flute let you play the flute OVER THE INTERNET? Never, that’s when.
TBC | £tbc | NTT DoCoMo (via Engadget)
