Short summary of #CWFDT event 'Smart Devices of 2025'

Last month, just before the Easter break, I along with some other SIG champions of the Future Devices & Technologies group at CW (Cambridge Wireless) organised an event titled 'Smart Devices of 2025'. Technologies are moving at such an amazing speed that it is not easy to foresee anything beyond 6-8 years. Hence 2025, 7 years from now.

Introduction to CW Future Devices & Technologies Group (#CWFDT) from 3G4G

As this was the inaugural event for the revamped SIG, the slides above are my quick introduction to the SIG. We not only talked about the future but we had some nice futuristic devices too. The nuFood 3D Food Printer by Dovetailed printed out some fancy toppings that could go on cheesecake and on other food, making it more appetising. Here is the video on how it works.



All the talks were very informative and very well explained. Its amazing how all of them came together to form a complete picture. The talks are all available here (limited time for non-CW members)

The starting talk by David Wood (@dw2), chair of London Futurists was not only informative and relevant to the subject being discussed but equally entertaining, especially for those who have been in the mobile industry for a long time. He has kindly agreed for me to share his slides which are embedded below.

Scenarios for Smart Devices in 2025: Brave New Smartphone and/or Black Mirror? from 3G4G

David talks about NBIC (slide 18) and how it could be combined with Social-tech and Planetary-tech in future to do a lot more than what we can do with it today. While David explains NBIC in his slides, I found this short video on this topic that I think is worth embedding.



It was also good to hear Dr Jenny Tillotson again after a long time. I blogged about smell transmission some 6 years back here. This is something that is still work in progress and probably will be ready by 2025. In the meantime 'Context-Driven Fragrances' can be used for variety of purposes from entertainment to health.

A fantastic talk from @scentsory on Context-Driven Fragrances #CWFDT pic.twitter.com/RoSTMiUqYz

— Zahid Ghadialy (@zahidtg) March 27, 2018

Finally, here is another small presentation (with embedded video) on Telepresence Robots that I did.

Telepresence Robots from 3G4G

Related posts:

• Have Wearables Found Their True Killer App? - Nitin Dahad, EE Times European correspondent
• Smart Devices of 2025 - Howard Read, Associate, Appleyard Lees

Adding new dimensions to the future phones - Smell

I am going to be involved in two events in the coming months to discuss about Evolution of Devices in the future. The first of them is the LTE World Summit that I have been going to for years and have recommended to lots of clients, colleagues and friends. In there I will be discussing about 'The Future Device' in the Breakfast briefing. In June I am chairing a session on 'Where Next For Devices' in The Future of Wireless International Conference. As a result I would be discussing some ideas on the blog with the intention of getting some valuable feedback and comments.

Smell has been associated with the mobile devices for a long time. There are two concepts floating around. The first is a phone that can smell the environment for certain odour or harmful gases and depending on what it smells, alerts the user or some authority. An example of this are the phones being developed by US Department of Homeland Security to smell poisonous gases. Another example is the e-nose concept developed by Imec, Belgium. There are other concepts being developed around m-health to help people with Asthma.

The second of these concepts are the devices that can emit smell. The simplest form of this would be like the Sony phones that emit fragrance for a few months and then a new sheet can be inserted for them to keep emitting a fragrance. A while back it was reported that Samsung has filed a patent for something similar.

Nokia had shown years back the 'Scentsory Concept' mobile that can transmit smell based on the environment to the other party who can get the feeling of where the other person is. Since then they have shown other concepts but I dont recall seeing much on smell. The 'HumanForm' concept I blogged about last year showed that we would be able to feel the environment but it was surprisingly quiet about smell part.

There is an interesting TEDx video in which Jenny Tillotson, who would be presenting her latest research in the Future Wireless conference mentioned abaove, is explaining some of these concepts on transmitting smell electronically. Video embedded below:



I would be very interested in hearing more on this topic from the readers.

Another concept phone from Nokia called 'HumanForm'

Description as follows:

HumanForm was created in a joint effort between Nokia Design and Nokia Research Center to translate the most promising new nanotechnologies into meaningful user experience, prototype those for decision making; and transfer and set aspiration for future portfolio.

Project is a key to bring significant user experience benefits to the market thereby creating mindshare and value share through nanotechnology enabled experiences.

HumanForm is a visionary solution for a dynamically flexible device beyond touch screen and voice communication where technology is invisible and intuition takes over. Natural interactions are enabled with kinetic user interface.

HumanForm concept and a follow-up Nokia Kinetic Device prototype were launched in Nokia World 2011.

To learn more, visit: http://research.nokia.com/

Phones with Flexible Screens in 2012

From PC World:

Samsung Electronics said Friday that it is aiming to launch mobile phones with flexible displays next year, with tablets and other portable devices to have these displays soon after.

The company said it was aiming to follow on the success of its Galaxy S II smartphone, which has now sold 10 million units in five months.

The comments came as the company discussed its earnings for the three-month period through September. Samsung said its overall profit fell 23 percent from a year ago to 3.44 trillion Korean won (US$3.1 billion), dragged down by its chip and display operations, but operating profit at its mobile unit more than doubled in the period.

"The flexible display, we are looking to introduce sometime in 2012, hopefully the earlier part," said spokesman Robert Yi during an earnings call. "The application probably will start from the handset side."

Yi said tablets and other mobile devices with flexible displays would follow.

Samsung has shown flexible OLED (organic light emitting diode) displays inside rigid cases that kept the screens curved. The technology has material within each pixel that generates light, making it perhaps more suitable for flexible screens than LCDs, which would require both a flexible screen and a backlight.

This is a Video from CES 2011 in January:

I like this concept of bendy phones. The following Nokia video shows how this could really be useful.

Toshiba shows something similar at SID 2010.

News via WebProNews.

Mozilla Seabird – A Community-driven Mobile Phone Concept

Since Mozilla Labs launched the Concept Series with an open call for participation we’ve had thousands of people join in, share ideas and develop concepts around Firefox, the Mozilla projects and the Open Web as a whole.

In response to our open call Billy May, in early 2009, produced a throw-away concept for an “Open Web Concept Phone”. Working directly off of that community feedback, Billy has since finished the exploration with his concept “Seabird”.

The following write-up is by Billy May and explores what an Open Web phone might look like:



The Mozilla Seabird, part of the Mozilla Labs’ Concept Series, is an experiment in how users might interact with their mobile content as devices and technology advances. Drawing on insights culled from the Mozilla community through the project’s blog, a focus quickly developed around frustrating physical interactions. While mobile CPUs, connectivity and development platforms begin approaching that of desktops, the lagging ability to efficiently input information has grown ever more pronounced.

More details here.

Pomegranate concept mobile: With video projector, live voice translator, harmonica, coffee maker, shaving razor, etc

The Pomegranate NS08 is a concept (fictional - though some people refer to it as a hoax) phone that promised amazing stuff until you dig deep and realise that its just an idea to market Communication Nova Scotia's Come to Life program. Check out the Youtube clip for the complete advertisement:

The following is from Wikipedia:

The Pomegranate phone is the latest campaign from Communications Nova Scotia's Come to Life initiative, the place-branding program of the Government of Nova Scotia. Communications Nova Scotia has been criticized by some for spending $300,000 on the ad campaign, though the website received more than 1,100,000 visits from 201 countries/territories since its launch on September 30, 2008, and they are considering it to be very successful.

Via: Techflight

Motorola (Concept) Phone that will help capture memories

A bit old new but new for me.

The idea, known as the Motorola 2033 Concept Series, was based around what mobile phones might look like in the year 2033.

The 2033 concept would allow for the device to capture memories directly from the user’s brain, through a process Motorola calls "organic memory capture". And if that wasn't enough, the 2033 concept would also allow users' to completely augment their eyesight through a process called Second Sight.

More concept phones here.

Scratch Input: Future Input for Mobile Phones

Very interesting...not being able to see past your fingers on smaller devices. That's where "scratch input" comes in. Harrison's prototype uses a digital stethoscope to pick up the sound of scratching on a table or wall. The device attached to the stethoscope, be it a phone, watch or a computer, is programmed to recognise the sounds of different scratch gestures. By tracing a spiral on his desk, Harrison can, for example, turn the volume down on his media player. Ultimately the microphone would be built into the device. Imagine a touch screen watchphone that can be controlled simply by scratching your arm.

You may be interested in reading this article Touch Screens at The Independent here.

Motorola's Digital Butler: Personal assistant with VIP services

Motorola is out with another conceptual device called the Digital Butler, a personal assistant device for the luxury market. This highly mobile device will work on advance 4G networks with GPS, giving you a full-time network connection to VIP services. The device will also include a circular touch-screen interface, accelerometer technology, PDA phone, squeeze buttons on the perimeter, and full-resolution built-in multimedia LED projector. Let’s just hope it will come into production soon.

More Info at Yanko Design.

Google G0 - Ready to go...

Designed by Taiwan's Tryi Yeh the Google-G0 is both a touchscreen phone and a slider, with four big navigation buttons for quick access to email, web browsing and more, which change depending on what you're doing. We don't see any physical keyboard anywhere, so it's probably handled virtually. On the back there's a set of speakers and a camera.

It looks like the G0's functionality persists when you plug it into its charger, and there's an image of a dock that looks like it'd either let you watch TV on your phone, or use your G0 like a remote. Check out the gallery below for more of Yeh's Google-G0 concept touchscreen phone.

Nokia developing self-recharging phone

Standby mode is often accused of being the scourge of the planet, insidiously draining resources while offering little benefit other than a small red light and extra convenience for couch potatos. But now Nokia reckons a mobile phone that is always left in standby mode could be just what the environment needs.

A new prototype charging system from the company is able to power itself on nothing more than ambient radiowaves – the weak TV, radio and mobile phone signals that permanently surround us. The power harvested is small but it is almost enough to power a mobile in standby mode indefinitely without ever needing to plug it into the mains, according to Markku Rouvala, one of the researchers who developed the device at the Nokia Research Centre in Cambridge, UK.

This may sound too good to be true but Oyster cards used by London commuters perform a similar trick, powering themselves from radiowaves emitted by the reader devices as they are swiped. And similarly old crystal radio sets and more recently modern radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, increasingly used in shipping and as antitheft devices, are powered purely by radiowaves.

The difference with Nokia's prototype is that instead of harvesting tiny amounts of power (a few microwatts) from dedicated transmitters, Nokia claims it is able to scavenge relatively large amounts of power — around a thousand times as much — from signals coming from miles away. Individually the energy available in each of these signals is miniscule. But by harvesting radiowaves across a wide range of frequencies it all adds up, said Rouvala.

Such wireless transfer of energy was first demonstrated by Nikola Tesla in 1893, who was so taken with the idea he attempted to build an intercontinental transmission tower to send power wirelessly across the Atlantic. Nokia's device is somewhat less ambitious and is made possible thanks to a wide-band antenna and two very simple circuits. The antenna and the receiver circuit are designed to pick up a wide range of frequencies — from 500 megahertz to 10 gigahertz — and convert the electromagnetic waves into an electrical current, while the second circuit is designed to feed this current to the battery to recharge it.

The trick here is to ensure that these circuits use less power than is being received, said Rouvala. So far they have been able to harvest up to 5 milliwatts. Their short-term goal is to get in excess of 20 milliwatts, enough power to keep a phone in standby mode indefinitely without having to recharge it. But this would not be enough to actually use the phone to make or receive a call, he says. So ultimately the hope is to be able to get as much as 50 milliwatts which would be sufficient to slowly recharge the battery.

Steve Beeby, an expert in harvesting ambient energy at the University of Southampton, said it

would be a remarkable achievement. . "Radio frequency power falls off exponentially with distance," he says. Earlier this year researchers at Intel and the University of Washington, in Seattle, showed that they could power a small sensor using a TV signal 4.1 kilometres away.

Wireless charging is not intended as a sole energy source, but rather to be used in conjunction with other energy harvesting technologies, such as handset casings embedded with solar cell materials. According to Technology Review magazine, the phone could be on the market in three to five years.

Golden-i: Futuristic Bluetooth Headset with Virtual PC Display

Microdisplay technology maker Kopin Corp. reports it has partnered with Motorola Inc. to introduce a wireless headset with a high-definition virtual display and speech recognition for remote control of things such as smart phones and PCs. Taunton-based Kopin (Nasdaq: KOPN) teamed up with Motorola’s Enterprise Mobility Solutions division to put a 15-inch virtual PC display together with a microphone and earpiece into the headset it calls the “Golden-i.” According to material from Kopin, the Golden-i uses Bluetooth 2.0 to connect to the devices, as well as to Bluetooth-enabled peripherals such as a mouse, touchscreen or keyboard. Golden-i runs on the Microsoft Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R2 operating system, and once connected, users will see their PC desktop screen on the 15-inch virtual display. To control the connected device hands-free, Kopin is incorporating the VoCon3200 software from Burlington-based Nuance Communications Inc. Golden-i also uses Nuance’s text-to-speech application to read back documents, e-mail messages, web content or any text on the display screen. According to Kopin officials, it supports up to 20 languages. If no interface peripheral such as a Bluetooth mouse is available, Golden-i can use its built-in Hillcrest Labs 6-axis, real-time position tracker to allow control of the connected device using head gestures. The device also provides a mini-USB port, and a removable Micro SD card slot taht can support up to 32GB of memory. The target market for Golden-i, according to Kopin, is remote workers looking to quickly connect to a PC or network for information, such as outside sales staff. It is also aimed at network support personnel, as it can support connections to multiple devices, Kopin said.Kopin, which counts the defense industry as a major customer, last December reported it had landed $3.1 million from the U.S. military for displays used in weapon sights. Once connected to a host device, such as a PC, users see their PC desktop screen on the 15-inch virtual display and with Nuance’s VoCon3200 software they can control it using voice commands in a number of languages. Kopin claims this software provides more than 90 percent proficiency straight out of the box, and the more it is used, the better it works. Golden-i requires no push-to-talk buttons and is ready to respond to a user’s request whether in light hibernation or during intermittent use. Golden-i also readily accepts conventional user interface from any host device touch screen, keyboard or wireless mouse and integrates Nuance text-to-speech, enabling Golden-i to read back any text displayed in a number of common languages. Running on the Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R2 platform, Golden-i can remotely wake a PC from practically any location and, when work is finished, the PC can be placed in hibernation with a single spoken command. The headset can also remotely control up to seven other devices or networks at one time, similar to the way users control software applications on a PC desktop. It operates much like a highly mobile server, a hub between various host devices. If a USB interface or removable memory is required, Golden-i provides a mini-USB port and a removable Micro SD card slot capable of supporting up to 32GB. Supported by Texas Instruments’ third generation OMAP dual processor platform, a single 1200 mA/hr li-ion battery should provide more than eight hours of standard use. While the Golden-i can be used just about anywhere, it is designed for “mobile information snacking”, rather than continuous use over long periods. Initial development of the unit has focused on industrial applications, so Kopin is seeking to engage several industrial organizations in several months of in-depth field testing and evaluation. Kopin hopes to incorporate any improvements and refinements uncovered during testing into its Golden-i products, which are expected to be available in 2010. Kopin believes Golden-i will free users from the need to carry a PC or laptop about with them. Freedom from work, though, is another matter entirely. You can read all about the hardware and software details and features of this device here.

Innovative Designs and UI is the key to survival for Handset manufacturers

The smartphone segment of the market is poised for growth, just as a range of players are poised to release new smartphone devices in the months ahead. Among the most anticipated are new handsets based on Google's Android operating system, the next iteration of the iPhone, and the Palm Pre.

But as the number of smartphone makers proliferates, the need to create a differentiated product also increases. Much of that differentiation likely will come from the phone's user interface. Unfortunately for those in the market, it's difficult to deliver a phone with a compelling user interface that doesn't mimic all the other devices on the market.

The user interface has to be more than just a pretty face. It has to add value and ease of use for consumers. "It has to be a distinction that consumers value," said Avi Greengart, an analyst for Current Analysis. "Having a prettier set of animated weather cards isn't going to be enough."

Driving innovation may be too difficult a task for OEMs to accomplish in-house, according to John Jackson, vice president of research for CCS Insight. However, there are notable exceptions to this-HTC designed its TouchFlo3D UI in-house, and Samsung has latched onto its proprietary TouchWiz UI as the building block for its smartphones. Nevertheless, many handset makers are turning to outside firms to stay ahead of the innovation curve.

Companies such as TAT and Handmark have built their businesses around working with handset makers and operators on the user interface. TAT CEO Charlotta Falvin claims that her company's offerings sit on 10 percent of all mobile phones out on the market. Falvin said TAT's role in the design of UI is to bridge gaps between the desires and strategies of vendors and operators, a tricky proposition since operators, vendors and independent service providers all want a piece of real estate on the phone--and in consumers' minds.

"Nokia wants it to be a Nokia experience, Vodafone wants it to be a Vodafone experience and Facebook wants it to be a Facebook experience," she said. Success in creating a differentiated UI, however, will not be based around who is the first to market, or who makes the best partnerships, Falvin said, but on "who makes the best experience."

Handmark tries a similar approach. One of its main products is Pocket Express, a cross platform application that gives users access to news, sports, weather, stocks, travel and entertainment applications via a single interface. Wugofski said that the service has 2 million active users.

On the other hand, Daily Wireless argues that innovative designs and thinking out of the box may be key to success for the handsent manufacturers. There are lots of innovation happening around the 'fourth screen'.

OpenPeak has created a ‘fourth screen’ (after tv, computer and cell) for the home. It’s a hub that combines features of the telephone, TV, PC and cell phone into a compact, communications center.

The intuitive navigation menu on the 7? touchscreen makes it easy to make calls, play music, share photos, and organize your household. The device, powered by an Intel Atom processor, features 1GB of built-in storage, WiFi connectivity, an ethernet port, an audio out jack, and USB socket. It runs a cellular-branded version of the OpenFrame software, which appears to be based on Ubuntu linux. It is a wired device (no battery operation).

O2, a large cellular carrier in the UK is offering it to subscribers for £149.99 or free if taken instead of a handset when upgrading or signing a new 18 or 24 month contract. Its being marketed by the name Joggler.

The Verizon Hub is a home phone with an internet-connected base that offers users access to V Cast entertainment services, messaging, and email among other features. It will link up to an Application Store.

GiiNii plans to ship its Android-based portable media player and picture frame in October and January, respectively, according to a spokesperson. Archos announced an Android portable media player for mobile telephony.

Intel is now pushing Moblin V2 Core Alpha for Netbooks which should arrive in beta in May. It will now (apparently) take precedence over Moblin for MIDs, says Linux Devices, which is now postponed until 2010.

The UMPC Portal blog opines that MIDs based on Moblin 1.0, such as the BenQ S6 are being overwhelmed by the popularity of netbooks so abandoned MID developers might instead move to Android or even, gulp, Windows XP.

And ofcourse there are many other devices not mentioned here but please feel free to add them in the comments.

Sonim XP1: The toughest phone

This is billed as the toughest phone ever built:

• Water/Humidity: Impervious to the Wettest Weather
• Temperature Range: Works Perfectly In Extreme Conditions (-20C to +60C )
• Shock and Vibration: Drop It, Abuse It, Drive Over It – No Problem! The XP1 is Virtually Indestructible
• Screen: Unique No-Glare Coating Resists Scratches and Smudges
• Durable Case: Hardened Rubber Molding Cast Via Dual Injection
• Durable Mechanics: Keypad Buttons Tested To 500,000 Pushes Dedicated PPT Buttons Tested To 200,000 Pushes
• Dirt and Dust: Non-Porous Casing Blocks Entry of Micro-Particles

Comes with 3 years guarantee

Selling in UK for £249.00

Official website here.

Coin operated 'Credit Crunch Mobile'

Bizarre concept, but I have already started liking it.

The following is from dialaphone website:

Following our brief earlier coverage of the phone set to challenge the Credit Crunch, we’re very excited to have the first artist’s impression of this new handset, codenamed the 100-F from a Latvian manufacturer, new to the mobile phone market, called Lirpa. It seems bizarre, but the phone design has been inspired by the global credit crunch (which must have reached Latvia too), and works as either a coin-operated or credit/debit card mobile. The UK variant will have a £1 coin slot for calls and a 10p slot for texts (not a bad price for a PAYG text) as well as a card slot (for which you’ll need to enter your PIN). It sounds like it will be quite bulky, maybe comparable with some of the smartphones around, and features will be limited - no camera or MP3 player as the components would take up too much valuable coin space.

Here are some of the 100-F features:
Colour screen - No
Bluetooth - No
Weight - 110g empty, 400g full
Available colours - Midnight Black, Dirty Grey and Grey Black
Card slot - Visa, Mastercard, Electron
Messaging - SMS, MMS, IOU
Ringtones - Built-in, Vibrate, Jangle

The idea behind this phone is obviously to make you think about how much you spend on calls, and we understand there’s another twist on this - users will be able to opt for having no access to the coin box, in which case they will have to take the phone to one of their network provider’s shops to have it emptied. None of the UK networks have commented on this as yet.

Dont forget to checkout the pre-order offers here.

Next Generation “Sixth Sense” game-changing wearable tech

TED has this very interesting concept from Pattie Maes’ lab at MIT, spearheaded by Pranav Mistry. It’s a wearable device with a projector that paves the way for profound interaction with our environment. Imagine “Minority Report” and then some...


Its just matter of time after this concept becomes reality for it to be available in mobiles, etc.

100% secure Zumba Lumba Phone to be available soon

Its a really catchy name and I may just buy it because of the name ;)

Rather than being developed by one of the world's large, well known handset manufacturers, the Zumba is being developed by IA Technologies, based in Hereford in the UK, using the brand name, Zumba Lumba.

It is being touted as potentially revolutionising the industry, due to what its makers claim is the world’s most accurate voice recognition system.

The Zumbafone could be available by the end of this year, according to reports.

The innovation is a circular pad that can be placed over the ear and detaches from a small handset that contains a circular dial pad and screen. Simply removing the earpiece pad from the handset activates a connection to the internet. You then simply say the name of a contact to dial a number or send a text. When you receive a text it can them be read out to you.

No contact information is stored on the handset itself, with all data being held ‘in the cloud’, which the makers say makes the phone 100 per cent secure. As it is fully tied to voice recognition, the claim is that if lost, the phone cannot be used by anyone else.

The phone is aimed as a low cost, or secondary phone, so eschews features such as high resolution screen and camera.

What is Zumba?

Low cost, simple and a refreshing new way to communicate

Unlike any other mobile phone or phone service

Designed and developed to become a real and exciting alternative

An everyday phone, or simply a back-up phone, Zumba strips away the complexity and expense of heavily featured handsets and introduces a fresh new way of making calls. Zumba does away with the need to remember phone numbers - you simply say your contact’s name and Zumba will connect you.

Because the Zumbafone is so exceptionally light and small it can be worn. As you can see from the pictures, it has a detachable keypad and screen which means you can wear it by slipping it over your ear.

Zumba has already been in development for three years and is in the final stages of development this year. We are looking forward to bringing our service to market and making its many benefits available to all.


You can watch Youtube video of ZumbaLumba:

Projector phones a plenty at CES 2009

AT CES2009, there were quit a few phones that can be used as 'Projectors'.

The new Logic Bolt, a touchscreen GSM quad band handset, boasts pico projection with the ability to project a 36- to 64-inch image.

Other specs of the Windows Mobile device include a 3-megapixel camera, Bluetooth, GPS, and of course, for the office appeal, PowerPoint for those impromptu presentations.

Onboard storage of 4GB and expandability up to 20GB means that business users, which are clearly the demographic for this phone, would be able to store hours of super-fun PowerPoint presentations and video on the handset to show off in important business meetings.

And for the all-important sound, the speaker located on the bottom was more than adequate, pumping out good sound even when flush to surface.

After that, any other features would be a bonus, and there are a few for the more than casual user. A 3MP camera, GPS and internet connectivity mean that this is more than just a business phone... although the lack of 3G connectivity and WiFi might hamper the last part.

A likely launch of around $600 phone-only, or $100 with a 2-year tie-in on T-Mobile or AT&T in the States is hinted at, but no news on a UK release.

Samsung recently got the wraps of an innovative mobile phone accessory called the MBP200 Pico Projector. In a compact and light weight form factor, the projector has been design to offer users amazing projector performance with its wide functionality.

Offering easy connectivity to mobile phones as well as laptops, the MP200 projector is equipped with Texas Instruments DLP pico chip that enables users to convert their device into a large 50” viewing experience. Packed with a microSD card slot, users can also transfer files and project content that does not rely on the attached source.

The projector weighs just 160g and is about 107.3 x 48.8 x 19 mm in dimensions making it a very portable device. Powered by a smaller version as the imaging technology found in Samsung HDTVs, additional features of the Mp200 Pico projector include 3.5mm standard jack, and a built-in speaker. Accessorized by a small screen holder that has a telescoping pole hidden within, the projector offers instant conversion of a regular sheet of paper into movie screen viewing.

3M was showing off miniaturised projectors (rather than phones with projectors)

They had two prototypes on view: one played video off SD cards, the other plugged into an iPhone and played videos off that. Unlike other pico projectors, these have an RGB LED inside rather than a straight white LED, which is a significant step forward. Both were very nice looking, but alas, both were mere prototypes. The projector the prototypes were based on is smaller than ever, which is great, but until we see these things built into actual phones rather than in relatively bulky separate devices, I don't know how far they'll go.

Their tiny MM200 is a projector meant to be fitted inside the casing of a mobile phone so you don’t need to carry anything else. At the touch of a button it would then project what’s being displayed on your phone’s display.

This is actually the second generation of 3M’s mobile projector with the first appearing last year with the name MPro110. With the MM200 3M are offering a 50″ screen projection while requiring just 1 watt to function through its use of LEDs for illumination.

LG shows off new 'touch watch phone' GD 910

The world's first market-ready "touch watch phone" with 3G video telephony and GSM quad band capabilities, the GD910 will go on sale in Europe "sometime in 2009".

Described as "chic and wearable", arguably it is not as comedic as some previous watch-phone offerings, but LG is perhaps pushing it a bit when they say that at first glance it could "simply be a high-end timepiece".

With a curved tempered glass face and a high quality metal casing the watch measures 13.9mm thick, a dimension that might be forgiven when you consider the 7.2Mbps 3G HSDPA compatibility.

Capable of sending text messages (on its 1.43-inch screen), there are also voice recognition features, which can be used with or without a Bluetooth headset, phone book, stereo Bluetooth and a built-in speaker for playing back MP3 music files.

It also recognises voices, transforms text to speech, has a Bluetooth function and works as an MP3 player.

The 'watch phone' is part of a trend towards multi-tasking gadgets that can perform a host of functions. Mobile phones, in particular, have been at the forefront of this convergence revolution.

At first glance, LG's new Watch Phone appears to simply be a high-end timepiece. The company used materials and stylistic elements found in watches from top manufacturers to ensure that people will be comfortable wearing it for any occasion. The Watch Phone has a curved tempered glass face, high quality metal casing and is a mere 13.9mm thick.

"This Watch Phone is the result of a great deal of research and development, something that is very important to us at LG. We will continue to invest in creating innovative new products and technologies like this and setting trends in the mobile phone industry," Dr. Ahn said.

iBangle: Not a phone but great concept

The iBangle is Gopinath Prasana’s vision of a future iPod where the devices have become darn close to becoming jewelry. If you factor in inflation and the cost of Apple products today - might as well call it jewelry because it’ll cost as much. I digress, the iBangle is a thin piece of aluminum (of course) with a multi-touch track pad. To achieve the perfect fit, a cushion inside the ring inflates to keep itself taught against your wrist. Unisex? Maybe.

If this concept becomes reality, it would be just mater of time before a phone is rolled in along with this.

The wearable concept is also puched in the Nokia concept phones like the Nokia 888 and Morph.