Camera Phones Plaza

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What is this passion for crystals all about anyway and where does it come from? They’re almost everywhere: from jewellery, clothes, footwear, to gadgets and all kinds of accessories. They’re invading any space they can reach to, alright, and people seem to just love it. In my childhood’s fairytales, whoever possessed some sacred ancient crystal could immediately take over its power and make use of it according to his wish. Therefore, they were the synonym for welfare and luxury.

But nowadays, things have changed: crystals are so common that they do not make the same impression as they did before. Nevertheless, seeing such a crystal phone might leave you speechless.

It’s true, crystal phones have been the talk of the design world over the past years, but they usually feature a small crystal piece. That’s why the Quartz Tele Concept could be considered the extreme version of such a gadget, as the device uses large quartz crystals instead of the traditional button pad. Each quartz replaces a specific number on a dial pad and they are all bright and shiny colored. Under each crystal there is an embedded LED and pressing each crystal illuminates it like a Christmas tree. They all sit on a base with a sharp LED screen that displays information every user needs, such as incoming calls, dates and contacts.

The designer of the concept is Tao Ma, a name that should sound familiar, as he created the Bracelet phone also, another innovative device that shows us how phones will look like in the future. The Quartz Tele Concept isn’t available on the market, but it sure gives us a hint on how technology will develop in the next couple of years.

(Source Concept-phones)

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I can’t stand it when I’m in the middle of an exciting conversation and my cell phone starts ringing loudly. Everyone stops from whatever they were saying or doing and stares at the person who interrupted the soul-lifting exchange of words. And the person is me and me only. I just hate that. Therefore, I switch my phone on its silent mode whenever I am to meet someone and I never make an exception about it. It’s no wonder I rarely hear my phone and almost all the time I must return the call in order to find out the reason someone needed me. It’s no wonder, on the other hand, I am always advised to wear my phone like a pendant hanging from my neck, so I at least feel its vibrations whenever it’s ringing and never miss another phone call again.



But why should I make such a fool of myself when I could simply wear my phone on my wrist and people wouldn’t even dare to imagine that my bracelet is in fact my phone? Don’t to laugh at me, because, you know, there are lots of people who hate to carry around their phones, even if they get smaller and slimmer. Therefore, if carrying a mobile phone in the pocket or bag seems inconvenient, then wearing it on your wrist might be just what the doctor ordered.



The cell phone bracelet concept was developed by the Chinese designer Tao Ma for the 2006 Lite On Corporation awards. Whenever this shiny bracelet phone receives any message it starts slightly vibrating and you can read the text by taking it off the wrist and pressing its precious looking-like-a-diamond keystroke. The same thing happens also when you want to pick up or make a telephone call. Based on simplicity, the concept might look like it’s compromising the display and the controls, which are placed on the inner side of the bracelet. There’s a small rigid section in the middle that houses the display, chips and battery, while the microphone is at one end (with the keypad buttons above) and the small speaker at the other end.

The bracelet includes an MP3 player and can be connected to headphones, which means you can replace your iPod or other MP3 player with your multifunctional bracelet phone.



You should be aware of the fact that most of the concept phones will never become an actual product and won’t be commercialized, but it’s interesting to see how mobile phones will look like in the not-so-very-far future.

(Source Concept-phones)

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Maybe you read about the Luxury Mpingo Phones from Gresso. They are made of African Blackwood, a very expensive material on the commercial timber market.
Now i want to present to you the Maple Phone from 2 designers that won Silver at the International Design Excellence Awards 2008 ( IDEA) competition for the Free Wind, best room air conditioner design.
Hyun Jin Yoon and Eun Hak Lee created a camera phone concept covered in thin wooden film, with touch sensitive buttons that light up through the housing when you touch the phone.



The cell phone measures 4.5 x 10.4 x 9.8 cm and is a slider with functions like calling, texting, MP3 player and digital camera. It provides basic cell phone functionalities in a cool and unique handset inspiring “special emotion” with its soft feel and a natural look.
The touch-sensitive sensors located in the back of the housing turn on the backlight, responding to your finger touch, bringing the wood to life. It would probably use the capacitive touch technology, which is a special panel coated with indium tin oxide or a similar material capable to conduct continuous electrical current across the sensor.
Maple’s LCD display reveals itself from back as you slide the phone.



This wood phone concept would be manufactured at lower costs and it’d surely be available at an affordable price, much lower than the 3500 Euro Gresso phones.
Other wood phones use special plastics instead of wood, both for the keep it green idea and for an easier manufacturing process.

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Remade is an interesting concept and now let’s see what the new Nokia cell phone concept is all about. It’s called Nokia Eco Sensor and it’s all a green design. It works together with a sensing device companion and it allows the users of such handhelds to share environmental information collected by the phone.



The sensor is wearable on the neck or wrist and can observe the environment changes, your health, as well as local weather conditions, while with the cell phone connects to it via the Near Field Communication technology using touch input.
Eco Sensor is customizable with green tools so you can choose between a heart-rate monitor, motion detector for walking, and others.
It could analyze the gas level in the air, ultraviolet radiation, noise level, air pressure, humidity level and temperature.

What would a green phone be made of? It would include printed electronics like conductive inks on plastic, polyactic acid plastics with plant modifiers, elastomers, and recycled steel for the entire casing.



Eco Sensor would be powered by solar energy, heat energy from the user’s arm or kinetic, as much as it needs because the sensing device could be self-powered eliminating the need for external sources.
For the display Nokia could use electrowetting, a next-generation technology consisting of applying electrical voltage to tiny drops of oil, which leads to the expanding and contracting of droplets, so the display will turn On or Off, similar with the pixel lighting process.

Nokia designers and researchers teams try to stimulate the industry to produce environmental-friendly devices and the Eco Sensor is just an example of what green design could become.

<-234x60 Half Banner - left->BloodRabbit finished his latest cell phone design concept and posted it yesterday on Product Design Forums. It is about a Nokia cell phone bringing a new display concept capable of changing its shape.



The project ShapeShift is a cool idea that could be realized using a similar method with the way ice cubes are shaped in the bag from your fridge, meaning that in that closed space from this bag, the shape is clearly predetermined. Instead of using colors on a screen with pixels, Nokia ShapeShift would have a preset form and would be made of 2 plastic layers, one would be flexible and the second one would be a hard material, while between these layers would be a special liquid characterized by the same refraction and the plastic. When more liquid is puched between the 2 layers, the preset buttons shapes form on the surface.



BloodRabbit imagines this cell phone measuring 11 x 5,5 x 1,2 cm at 125 grams and with a 4-inch display.