Auto Parts for Brains

This article is a personal review by the author of the concepts from NEC Corporation.  For the reader’s ease of use these devices are listed in this post.  More information may be found in the NEC official website.

Yesterday I got a call from my brother informing me that he just sent me an email about something that is very cool.  He sends an email to me rarely, and the fact that he called to inform me about it made me wonder what this thing could be that excites him.

I usually do not open my personal emails immediately when logging on to the web.  As one would save the crisp skin of a KFC Hot and Crispy Chicken or the rich fudge of a McDonald’s sundae, I usually, save the best for last; a time when I can savor it better.  This day however, I made an exception and decided to look at my inbox for the mail that so excited my sibling.

I saw it entitled, “Guess What This Is”.  What followed were a series of pictures of what looked like pens.  To my amazement, (but I guess not as much as my brother’s), the pens transform to a functional desktop PC.  I thought of sharing this picture with a few friends, and not wanting to send a forwarded message, did a research on where the cool design originated.  After a few minutes of checking sites like Gizmodo and Digg, I was able to get into the source of the design.  The pens it seemed came from the site for NEC Corporation.  I was disappointed to see, though, that the page was more than a year old.  I also searched Digg and found entries a year old.  Aside from the pen computers, six other gadgets in its concept form were listed there.  “These are cool”, I thought.

This made me wonder on the status of the device at present.  I did a little more research and was lucky enough to get to a more current page for the devices.  I was also happy to find that the list for these cool concepts rose to twenty from seven.

The following are the devices that I feel will be a part of the future’s digital lifestyle.  Just as we give so much attention to what auto parts we place inside our cars, these devices might just shape our lifestyles in the future.  For more information visit the NEC Corporation’s website.

 Closer to the Present

With the hundreds of cell phone models available to us today, it truly is a challenge for designers to come up with new concepts that could be well adapted to what users will look for in the future.

The following designs are closer to the present time, expected to be available 3 to 5 years from now.

Lattice Key Interface (Intuitive Input Device)

With this design NEC takes a cool jab at mobile ergonomics, replacing the usual input keys of letters and numbers with a dialog style input interface that can be operated intuitively.  Numberless keys separated with a lattice may sound like a confusing innovation. An easy to follow on screen guide, on the other hand may prove this device to be the easiest to navigate.  Think of the times you type without looking at your keys; this is a lot like it.  With this feature, one can send messages while the phone is hidden from our teacher’s prying eyes.

VIAL Network Media player

A wearable media device and communicator in one, this device shouts uniqueness from every angle.  Unlike modern phones of today, here the role of main device and accessory is switched.  The main device is the wearable pen like gadget that allows music enjoyment via a network.  Seamlessly transforming itself into a communication device, it connects wirelessly to a compact viewer and input device.  The input device has a round rotating keypad that allows viewing of text or visual information.

This reminds me of girlie spy communicators.  One looks like a compact and the other a reporter’s pen.

PRISM Private AV Theater and Computer

This gadget is a must have for the minimalist and the space conserving freak in all of us.  At fist glance, it looks like a sleek audio player, not unlike the speaker docks being sold for the iPods today.  When one starts pulling here and there, this device turns into cool new contraptions that will make even Optimus Prime take a run for his money.  PRISM boasts of a flat panel display that is so thin it can be rolled inside the device’s body.  This can be pulled out depending on the use.  A small portion of this can be exposed for viewing letters and emails or it can be rolled All-out, making it an awesome screen for one’s movie collection. It has a keyboard that slides into the main body as well allowing seamless storage. 

Flipper Mobile Internet Viewer

Looking like a Star War’s Racing Pod, this device takes on the challenge of one hand operation seriously.  Aptly named because of its fin like handle, this device sacrificed size for ease of use with one of either of the user’s hands.  Equipped with a trackball that can be operated from both sides and a jog dial synchronized with a screen menu, this gadget is a must have for any multi tasking geek.

Palette Mobile Terminal and Service Realizing Comic-Like Communications

This device is an eye candy, taking cool concepts like the much fussed about Optimus Keyboard.  Designed primarily to be a visual communicator, this gadget has the coolest keypad around.  A colored LCD is placed behind a transparent keypad that changes its display dynamically according to the operation.  This makes this device adapted to any application.  A picture deformation tool that renders photos in a dramatized and comic like way also adds to the overall feel of it.  The camera reminds me so much of the antennae-like laser beams of War of the World spaceships.

Chameleon

A circular badge-like music player that has the ability to play visual images as well.  It’s main body, though quite small can do scan functions for small images and can transmit these images to the player for later playback.  These images are digitally animated and synchronized with the music being played.  The play unit display also functions as a speaker membrane allowing music listening without earphones.  A totally cool device that looks nothing like a music player.

Glass Navi

Using GPS, this is an above standard positioning information terminal that has the ability of locating points and integrating them to a 3D render of a landscape.  Using its binocular like viewer, detailed information can be viewed and recalled by zooming in on various aspects of the landscape.  The image shown will definitely be highly detailed, and will be as good as seen on a 52 inch monitor.  Technology like this is usually seen on James Bond films.  Though not yet as sophisticated as to sport x-ray vision, this device boasts as being a very sophisticated positioning tool.

More from the Near Future

With “near future paradigms” in mind, the creative designers of NEC have listed the Drool-Over List of cool soon to be seen devices.  The models shown are concepts and are not yet cleared for commercial release.  I feel that it is every geek’s privilege to see these devices before they actually come out.  Without further ado, let the mouth’s fall open in awe filled gazes.

DEW Life Recording Interface

This gadget has two aspects.  One is the wearable camera that the user can place around his or her neck and the other is an awesome viewer that saves the photos stored for viewing.

The camera is a beautifully designed necklace that has what looks like a pearl for a pendant.  The user wears this constantly allowing the camera to take pictures and records of one’s daily experiences.  For someone who loves candid and stolen shots, this is a must have.  What one gets is an unstaged collection of raw pictures that will definitely make memories sweeter.  This boasts of a sophisticated emotional recognition ability that determines vocal rhythms and gesture recognition, activating the camera for those fun and special events.  This recorded information is saved in real time to the viewer via the server.  The viewer can then access these records for later viewing.  The only drawback for this device is that one should let another person wear the necklace camera if one wants pictures of himself.  This is solved by having your friends have the device too.  The viewer also allows on to search records saved by others for your face.

Kotohana: Emotion Communicator

What will you get if you combine “mood Rings” with communication devices?  Yes, the answer could be NEC’s Kotohana.  Since emotion is not something that can easily be transmitted through wires or even through Bluetooth, this idea is a leap into the future of communications.  With emotions being sent with our messages, the way we talk with our loved ones will definitely be enhanced.  This device uses two flower-like terminals that can determine the users’ emotions by analyzing voice patterns.  These are then turned into signals that are transmitted from one terminal to the other.  The flowers change in color according to the emotion conveyed. 

AXES

Dubbed as the future of the PC, this retro-future device can control various search conditions with the ease of tuning a radio.  This allows the user to go through a vast amount of information without the hassle brought about by the standard mouse.  With a lot of users being frustrated with narrowing down the range of available information, especially for search engines where several keywords are involved, this is God sent.  No more wishing we can put in our hands inside the PC to sort thru the information barrage we are always a subject of.

Flask Fuel Cell Phone

It is all about beauty with this innovation from NEC.  Aside from being an awesome technological artifact, Flask boasts of a beauty that will turn every head and attract every gaze near it.  This device packs the convenience of a regular cell phone in an elegant ultra high density enclosure.  Packaged with fuel cell technology, this is a gorgeous device to reckon with.   The future of design starts here.

Plume

Without the geek babble, this device is like a glass with a feather shaped pen that allows the user to go back to the feel of writing on paper with ink.  One might call it, regression, but to me this is skill preservation.  With the improvements in technology, many from our generation have largely depended on the computer, largely forgetting the art of writing.  Using the most advanced digital technology, writing takes a new meaning as a beautiful endeavor bringing with it the human need for pondering and contemplation.  Inserting the pen atop the device will save the data written displaying it as flowing ink.

S’AL’A Media Accessory

This device is waiting for the promise of decreased cost for RF-ID technology.  If that happens in the near future, this gadget could come to our offices and homes earlier.  With a great potential for the retail and logistics business, this handy device becomes a personalized and individualized RF- ID tag.  It allows association of the tag with various data like photos and movies that shows on its tray with its built in display and a sensor.   This is definitely an awesome way to protect ones identity.

Still Concepts

Produced about three years ago, these devices have wowed many but have since remained as concepts.  It is funny though, that, even today, a few years later, looking at these gadgets still bring with them a sense of amazement and excitement for what the future could possibly hold. 

Tag Soft Shell Cell phones

A new malleable, wearable and casual communicator, Tag can be hung on a belt or worn by the user around his or her arms.  More than a phone on rubber, this phone has built in sensors that reads pressure and memorizes the shape it has taken allowing it to assume various modes.  As flexible as the material with which it is made, tag allows one to use the cell phone inn a variety of unimaginable ways limited only by one’s creativity.

Flacon Virtual storage Bottle

Now, there’s more reason for the Djinn in the lamps to fear.  NEC introduces this device as an answer for data over storage.  With today’s data and info barrage, one can easily lose data stored with heaps of incoming new data.  This is so true with our pictures.  As our pictures are turned to virtual bits of data on our storage devices, some of them are kept in obscurity.  This device changes all that, by showing our pictures inside an inorganic electroluminescent display.  An option to view and show these images is available through its built in projector.

Gumi

Another jab at Radio Frequency Identification, this crazy contraption uses tiny microchips to hold usage rights to music or images available on the network.  To make things a little crazier, these chips are enclosed in a gummy capsule that is edible.  Yessiree, edible.  That means that after one is done with them, they can put these chips in their mouth.  Talk about two vices in one- music and food.  Connecting the main container to the play unit turns it into an audio device.  The device can also be connected to a cradle connected via LAN to a display allowing one to view visual contents.  The chips can be bought separately, and are available in blank options as well for data allocation.  This is what the candies of the future might be like.

Wacca Visual Memory Bracelets

Taking the concept of bringing back memories by the use of visual reminders, designers have come up with this device that allows one to relate a visual memory with the tools associated with it.  Through an opening, this device looks at the landscape around the user and takes images of these.  To take things further, distance from the users face is also measured so that the image captured will be closest to what the user actually perceived.  A viewer is also available for when one wants to reminisce and view his “memories saved”

P-ISM Personal Networking Package

In a very Bond-ish fashion, this innovation sees the latest in human technology in the form of a pen.  As information terminals grow smaller, the fact that we have to manipulate them using our hands has never been omitted.  This package of five pen-like contraptions include the following: CPU, Cellular phone with handwriting data input function, virtual keyboard, projector screen, and a camera scanner.  Connected through each other via short-range wireless technology, this device can connect through the internet using the cellular phone, presumably 3G or HSDPA.

Nave 360 Degree Visual Communication Device

 With its unique round display and the super wide angled central camera, this communication device allows a complete view of ones surroundings.   This is a very nice feature for those who want conferencing with friends and loved one.  Honestly this reminds me of Harry Potter pensieve or better yet, a witch’s cauldron.

And lastly

Duo PC and Duo Phone

With the geeks going loco over everything duo, these technology uses dual displays.  The laptop can be placed on a desk where one display can act as a key board and a tablet while the other as the monitor.  When reading an eBook, one can opt to open it as a book and have two displays for better reading simulation.  With the use of short range wireless connection and COG technology, this device uses two displays bonded together by multi layered hinges.  The phone also has two displays but one of them is detachable for a better and a more natural video call experience.  It can also transform to a remote and a mouse when used with the PC.

These Drool-Over List may or may not come to pass.  One thing is evident though, given the major advances we have in technology, there is still a large space for innovation and development that needs filling up. 

* all pictures property of NEC Corporation