LG has teased its first rollable smartphone, giving a brief glimpse of the new form-factor during the company's big CES 2021 keynote today. While the phone-maker has been flirting with some more unusual designs for devices in response to handsets like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2, it's also been working on an even more eye-catching design.
It's not unusual to see listings online for what are claimed to be unreleased prototypes of products, both past and future. eBay is definitely a prime place for such transactions, where potential buyers can try to outbid each other for what they believe could be an important piece of human history. That said, it still boggles the mind that someone would pay $6,000 for a OnePlus 9 5G prototype which may not be exactly that historical significant anyway.
It's not really a secret that products undergo multiple iterations, some of which hardly look like the finished version that eventually goes on sale. Prototypes are often closely guarded secrets and most get discarded and destroyed, never to be seen by the public's eyes. Once in a while, some do miraculously make it out. As if that alone weren't exceptional enough, the fact that this Apple Watch prototype still has working software makes this sighting even rarer.
Gas pump attendants are getting an EV upgrade, with Volkswagen showing off a new mobile charging robot that could bring the power to your electric vehicle and even plug it in for you. The prototype robot would be free to roam around restricted parking lots, VW suggests, bringing power to wherever an EV was parked rather than forcing drivers to compete for a handful of charger-equipped spots.
Manufacturers reveal concept designs and working prototypes for a variety of reasons. It could be for bragging rights, being established as a pioneer, or proof that the company can indeed make such a product. Not all of these concepts get turned into actual commercial products but some of them surprisingly do. Unfortunately for those hoping OPPO would be the first in the market with a rollable phone, the company is simply saying no, at least not for the immediate future.
Although it is only recently that OPPO's name became more familiar around the world, the company has long been making innovations in the smartphone space, including some rather unconventional form factors. Those include the OPPO N1's rotating camera as well as the more recent OPPO Find X's pop-up top. These days, however, nothing says "unconventional" more than foldables, swivables, and rollables so it is with great pride that the company is revealing its OPPO X1 2021 rollable concept phone alongside its next step in AR eyewear.
Sony may have not become a small-time player in the mobile market but there was a time when it eclipsed Samsung and went head to head with the old Nokia and Motorola. That was during its time as Sony Ericsson, when it launched notable (Symbian/UIQ-based) smartphones as well as flaunting the still popular Xperia line. It also dared to come out with innovations that may have been far ahead of its time, like the Xperia Play gaming phone and this VAIO-branded smartphone that has now come to light as a canceled prototype.
Chinese company Vivo is showing off a new smartphone prototype that features a unique color-changing glass back, one that dramatically shifts through different hues seemingly by magic. A video of the device in action was shared directly by Vivo on Chinese social media, with the company explaining that while the underlying technology behind the design is complex, the final result is simple and 'gorgeous.'
The 2013 Mac Pro was notorious for being a radical departure from Apple's usual design acumen, sporting a form that was derisively compared to a trash can. It was also one of the very few Apple products to sport a glossy black finish, also a first for the Mac Pro line. It turns out that Apple has long been toying with the latter material as far back as 2007 and could have even debuted on a similar radical departure from its iPod line, the iPod Touch.
Nintendo doesn't seem to be having the best of times this year when it comes to security. Following the hack of hundreds of thousands of Nintendo accounts back in April, the company experienced another data breach in May, this time yielding a massive amount of source code for many of its old games and consoles. While the gaming industry is still coming to grips with the full repercussions of this leak, some more enterprising individuals have apparently put in the work necessary to use that source code and build what they claim are prototypes of some of Nintendo's earliest franchises, including Super Mario, Star Fox, and even Legend of Zelda.
For years, Apple's mobile and desktop worlds have been distinct and separate islands of their own. Lately, however, the company has been working to bridge the two together, like running iOS apps on Macs with Catalyst. It turns out that Apple's newly revealed ARM-based Silicon processor maybe smashing those two worlds together in more ways than one. A new leak has surfaced pointing to the almost dreamy possibility of an iPhone running on an Apple Silicon running macOS, possibly when connected to an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse.
Before the iPhone, Apple's most iconic mobile device didn't even allow you to communicate. The iPod was, for many years, the gold standard for portable music players. Then along came the iPhone and, later on, the iPod Touch was born to catch up. The two worlds would come together a couple of times but there was a time when the iPod Touch almost went off on its own direction again, putting a camera on the back of the iPod Touch 3 where no iPhone or iPod Touch ever would.