Sure, mobiles phones are advanced right now, but the Nokia Gem shows we’re still trapped in the confindes old fashioned design paradigms. Who says a phone has to have a screen? Why not make all of a phone the screen? That’s exactly what the stargazing ideas peeps at the Nokia Research Centre have cooked up: read on to see the video.
While the Nokia Lumia 800 is a beautiful phone, it still sticks to traditional touchscreen conventions: there’s one flat panel on which all of the prodding must take place. But a video released today shows off a concept even more intriguing than a malleable, bendable mobile: a Nokia Gem phone, where all of the surface area acts as a display.
Never mind screensavers and ringtones: senior design manager Jarkko Saunamäki says that the Nokia Gem would be the ultimate customisable phone. You could stick the shopping list on it, track controls wherever you like, even have it act as an auto-stereoscopic display.
“There is no default appearance. If you play a lot of games it will usually resemble a games pad, for example…It’s called Gem because polished precious stones have several sides. Also it’s a concept which is like a raw Gem, but it needs to be polished to become a real product.”
There in of course lies the problem: the Nokia Gem is no more than a mock-up in a Finnish laboratory right now. Back in the real world, we’re still trying to figure out how to stop scratching our regular screens with our house keys.
Still, it’s always intriguing to see ideas like this being cooked up by those with the R&D budgets to realise them. As Siri for the iPhone 4S has already started to show, touchscreen controls are just the start, not apex, of controlling your blower.
(Via Nokia Conversations)
