Remember the Qualcomm mirasol ebook reader prototype we we exclusively showed you yesterday? One thing we weren’t allowed to photograph – something Qualcomm rectified today – was one of the more interesting attachments they envisage potentially figuring highly: a snap-on gaming controller. The mirasol team won’t confirm any OEM names, but using the low-power displays in gaming hardware looks to be another potential avenue. Plus, after the cut, a video of the mirasol display in action.
Nokia’s The Way We Live Next 3.0 event isn’t intended to launch new hardware – they had Nokia World a few months back for that – but they couldn’t let the day pass without revealing a few details as to how they envisage devices and services of the future functioning. Heikki Norta, SVP of corporate strategy, took to the stage to show a demo video of possible mobile life in 2015, complete with location sharing, face recognition and that old mainstay of futurology concepts, projection keyboards. There’s also a pretty impressive dual-display netbook and a modular system which can easily switch your “passport data” between a full-sized handset and a smaller unit more suited to exercise-wear.
Video demo after the cut
Nokia’s various open-source teams are well on their way to being the flirting teases of the mobile OS world; after last week’s Symbian Foundation demo video, showing a nifty amalgam of augmented reality, geo-location services and combined social network streams, head of Maemo marketing Peter Schneider took to the stage at Nokia’s The Way We Live Next 3.0 event to discuss his team’s vision of “contagious content”. According to Schneider, one day our mobile devices will be able to spot hot topics of information – whether they be Twitter messages, photos or something else – nearby to us, and flag them up to better involve us.
Microsoft’s Courier project – a dual-display “book” style electronic journal – has been intriguing us since it first leaked back in September, and the latest spillage of UI details courtesy of Gizmodo’s mysterious tipster is doing nothing to temper our interest. The twin screens are both multitouch-capable and respond to fingers and the special stylus, the latter having two side-buttons (the upper one being an “undo” key), an eraser on the other end, and a rotating barrel that flips between different pen modes.
Like an ex-partner suddenly hitting the gym and prompting some relationship regrets (yes, we’re shallow here in the tech world), Symbian Foundation have caught our eye with a new demo video of what they’re suggesting might be a nifty future UI for the platform. Part of Lee Williams’ keynote at SEE 2009 last month, the video shows a device with lashings of augmented reality and location-based services, together with social networking integration.
Video demo after the cut
The wisdom of designing gadgets that look like spiders when so many people find the many-legged bugs creepy is arguably lacking, but that hasn’t stopped Ericsson. The company’s latest concept is the so-called Ericsson Spider Computer, a tripod design that will incorporate a full PC, pico-projector, laser keyboard and integrated 3G, and offer the people of 2020 an easily transported computing setup.
Video demo after the cut
If you saw the video we posted last week of the Nissan Land Glider concept that leaned and though to yourself if it had one less wheel and looked like the cockpit of a Viper from Battlestar Galactica you would totally buy one, get your checkbook out. BMW has unveiled a new three-wheel concept called the SIMPLE.
Sony may not have made any significant changes to their flexible OLED laptop concept since we saw it first at CES back in January, but the sleek prototype is so alluring that SlashGear Japan couldn’t walk past it at CEATEC this week without grabbing a photo. Intended to showcase the potential of ultra-thin OLED touchscreens, the concept combines both display and keyboard into a single, flexible layer.
The results for Microsoft’s pressure-sensitive keyboard competition are in, and there are some interesting uses for the prototype ‘board. The peripheral can track not only which keys are pressed but the force with which they’re hit, and it’s that which “Most Useful” first prize winner SafeLock takes advantage of; the password app not only matches up an eight-character code, but measures flight time, hold time, maximized pressure and a curve fit to measure pressure over time for each keypress.
Video demos after the cut
After Shane flagged up a couple of interesting and definitely distinctive electric cars yesterday, it only seemed fair to counter with this: Nissan’s Land Glider concept. Reminiscent of the VentureOne tilting trike, the twin-seater Land Glider leans into turns to avoid falling over, and is blessed with one of the coolest cockpits we’ve seen in some time (you can see it in the gallery after the cut).
Video demo after the cut
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