Stumbled upon two websites dealing with concept phones today:

– a site (in Japanese, irritatingly slow and tricky to navigate) where Vodafone presents its concept phones (via core77)

– another one presenting a malleable phone by NEC . The soft-shell mobile phone can be hung from a belt or wrapped around the user’s arm. Shape-memorizing material and multiple pressure sensors allow the phone to change its shape according to the mode.

Although it’s unlikely that we’ll find them on the shelves tomorrow, I couldn’t resist the temptation to add the “phones” created by Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau:
The Mobile Feelings project studies how to communicate via virtual touch over mobile phone networks and explores the ambivalence of revealing personal information to anonymous listeners.

Their egg-shaped devices integrate pulse sensor, scent/heat sensor (similar to those used to detect bad breath) and micro-ventilators to transmit data over Bluetooth technology to capture the users’s heartbeat, blood volume pressure and pulse, skin connectivity. The testers reported sensations of intimacy, bodily connection nearly embarrassing when they had to share the experience with total strangers.

What is amusing is that they first decided to insert the technology into real pumpkins for an exhibition. After the show, the decomposing vegetables were substituted by less unconventional materials.