Sony Echo stamps sound for later listening

The following concept design comes from a workshop held yearly by Sony, the product being here a hand-held device that records sounds, attaches them to symbols, and stamps them on objects for later scanning. When you scan a symbol later on, the device plays back the sound you recorded at an earlier date. Can you imagine the possibilities this simple set of functions could hold? Fantabulous!

This device is conceptualized by Shan Hao Cheng, and is made with the Sony brand on it simply because of the event that Sony holds yearly in China. I must remind you, as I must remind everyone who happens upon an early concept design post such as this, that the product isn't yet brought up to speed with the technology needed to execute it. Because designers in this particular Sony event are allowed to design without exact execution in mind, the imagination can run wild, and the designs can essentially be magic.

We've got something similar to this out there right now in QR-code creating and scanning, but this concept right here is all contained inside a single object. Because we know that taking a concept and filtering it down to a single device that can contain the entirety of the proposed activity will work – Apple's iPhone, for example, works quite well in this way – we know that this device could very well become somewhat of a hit if it were to evet reach the manufacturing floor and stores. Like all concept designs, this one needs to be pushed forward with one thing: cash.

Would you buy it? How about if you were a teacher looking to do some conceptual projects with your students? Perhaps if you were a graffiti writer? What about music artists looking to have people running around a city scanning musical codes?

Have at it!

[via Yanko Design]