Ever since the birth of science fiction in the 19th century people have enjoyed predicting what the future holds for technology. While some forecasts from several decades ago can seem quite laughable now they still managed to get a lot of things right. While the concepts in this 1960s prediction of the future may all sound familiar, the hardware still seems stuck in a bygone era. One thing that this video didn’t predict was Apple’s revolutionary concept of producing stylish looking gadgets.
With modern computers and Photoshop it is easier than ever for future enthusiasts to offer their vision of the coming technological landscape – and it is also easier for them to make their creations much more convincing. Perhaps these concepts will seem quite laughable in a few decades time, but for the moment they offer us a glimpse of some of the things we might be able to expect on our mobile phones in the coming years.
Bendable Screens – Philips Fluid and Samsung Galaxy Skin
Philips is not a particularly well established name in the world of smartphones but it is one of the companies hard at work developing a bendable OLED screen. The applications for such a screen are almost endless, but one that has got concept phone designers particularly interested is the idea of a bendable phone.
The Philips Fluid concept phone, designed by Dinard da Mata, will allow you to hold your phone like a current touchscreen device, or snap it round your wrist like a watch. You can also bend it at a slight angle to stand it up for watching videos. While many people like the idea of a watch phone they are not too keen on missing out on a phone they can hold up to their ear, so a flexible smartphone could be the perfect solution.
The problem with this concept is that even when bendable screens are fully developed and ready to use, other components in smartphones will still be in their traditional unbendy state. Because of this, even when bendable screens become available bendable phones will still be a few years off.
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Another company hard at work developing bendable screens is Samsung. A few months back the blogosphere went crazy over a new leaked Samsung Galaxy Skin which featured a bendable screen, only for it later to be revealed as a concept.
Although the Skin is just a concept, designed by Haeseong Jee and Haeyon You from Hongik University, Samsung is hard at work making bendable screens a reality. These would of course feature Samsung’s trusty AMOLED technology which would single them out from bendable OLED screens produced by other companies such as Philips.
The Galaxy Skin design would get around the major problem faced by the Philips Fluid, as not all of the phone is bendable. While the screen is bendable there remains a ‘normal’ phone section at the bottom that could be used to house unbendable components, and allow the Galaxy Skin a more traditional form factor. Because of this we will most likely see phones like the Galaxy Skin before we ever see a Philips Fluid. In fact, if rumours are to be believed we may start to see flexible Samsung phones during the first half of this year.
Social Networking with Emotions – BlackBerry Empathy
BlackBerry is losing out in the current smartphone market to the iPhone and a plethora of Android competitors, and a phone like the Empathy is the sort of thing that RIM really needs to reinvigorate its smartphone business.
The Empathy features a very unique gemstone design that still manages to include the BlackBerry QWERTY keyboard that you would expect on other devices. The aesthetics are not really what is interesting with the Empathy though as this phone comes with a Mood Ring that can use Twitter and Facebook to let people know how you are feeling.
This is social networking to the extreme, and will perhaps only appeal to New Age crystal healers, but it is certainly an interesting idea that no company has yet explored. How exactly this Mood Ring works is not quite clear and probably the main reason that the Empathy hasn’t made an appearance since it was first conceived at the Art Center College of Design workshop back in 2010.
Of course it is not too difficult to just tweet what you are feeling, or update your Facebook status with an emotive message – but the Empathy does offer one suggestion for the future development of social networking on smartphones.
One feature that is helping BlackBerry phones sell despite stiff competition is BlackBerry Messenger, but with the likes of iMessage for the iPhone and cross-platform apps like Whatsapp being readily available BlackBerry is losing its edge. Perhaps if it was able to offer a new level of messaging through emotions RIM might be able to win back some of its consumers.
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