Nokia Concept Designs: Charger, UI, digital upgrades

Nokia is having its first ever “Design Event” in Central London today at their new Studio, pictured above. Several concepts were presented of projects currently being worked on, but are not going to see the light of day for another 3 to 5 years.

First up is this new “People First” concept that is simply a list of people you communicate with based on your last interaction with said person. Pretty cool stuff, but why should such an “advanced UI” be 3-5 years out? I don’t get it.

Next is the “Zero Waste Charger” which trys to tackle power consumption. Three ways to achieve this goal are currently under review:

Put a button on the charger so that it doesn’t suck power until you push said button. Built in timer turns the charger off after an hour.
As soon as a device is connected the charger starts charging, but then shuts itself off after an hour automatically.
The ultimate goal is to have the device talk to the charger and tell it to activate only when the device needs power.

All great ideas, number 2 is the most practical, number 1 will cause a lot of people to return their charger thinking it is broken. Number 3 is amazing, but the technology to do that isn’t cheap enough today and when it is cheap enough in half a decade it is still going to be an extra penny that is added to the BOM which adds up when you ship half a billion mobile phones a year.

Third and final concept called “Wears in, not out” is the most confusing since it is already happening today … anyway quote from the press bulletin:

“As more services become available on our mobile devices this concept explores how people could potentially upgrade their devices digitally rather than physically in the future, giving people an additional choice on how they use and update their mobile phones.”

[Via: Nokia]

About The Author

Stefan Constantinescu

Stefan Constantinescu (@WhatTheBit on Twitter) has loved technology since as far back as he can remember. It started with computers, but in the past few years his passion has turned to mobile devices. As a mobile phone enthusiast who lives and breathes devices that connect to the internet, he knows he is not alone with this radical fascination of all things wireless. He is strongly opinionated and enjoys a good debate so leave comments in his posts and he’ll get back to you! Stefan began blogging as a hobby in the fall of 2006 and joined IntoMobile in the summer of 2007. Later he got a job at Nokia in March 2008, but as of June 2009 he has rejoined the IntoMobile team. He is currently based out of Helsinki, Finland.

bazza

All fine ideas, but its a shame they cant be implemented now.

The “Wears in, not out” concept i think means that you can have a device that has future-proof hardware, but software upgradeable without any dip in performance or the need to envy a new device. Of course we can upgrade via firmware today and thus extend the life of a device at least a few months, but i think this concept goes beyond and maybe into a abit of science fiction.

Imagine an N95 that had hardware that can be upgraded physically via software. That internal 120MB ram could be transformed into 16GB, the 5Mpx camera module into a 10Mpx …and so on and so forth. Abit farfeteched indeed but not impossible when you have your pdevice built around nanotechnology. Specially built circuit boards and chips that can rearange their makeup according to certain commands, thus if the manufacturer so wished, they could announce a new feature for the phone and instruct owners to download and upgrade.
DYNAMIC HARDWARE!! THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE!! (patent pending)

Yes, it does have its disadvantages, it is very far off in the future, it could be very much impractical and it may not be exactly what that concept meant…..but its cool regardless, and afterall thats what concepts are.
Stefan Constantinescu

i think you’re on drugs =P! that kind of thing will never happen, they’d rather you buy a new phone. this is all about adding features via software.
ayush3090

@bazza

dude you ARE on drugs dude :p

nice dream btw
bazza

^_^ A lil crack here and there and boom, you discovered a new breakthrough in science. Just dont write that part on your report. lol
bazza

Never say never. It may take one very bold (foolish?) company to throw out the rule book and start a new one.

But then again, we are humans and profit rules over betterment of the species.

Oh well, back to the weed…uh…i mean herbal tea.
Andrew

1. This doesn’t sound advanced, more like something Nokia Beta Labs will knock out.

2. About as advanced as a toaster.

3. Either they’re talking about expanding the software in the same way that is already possible, or they’re talking about adding upgrades to chips like making the chips go faster, or turning an EDGE chip into an HSDPA chip, which is something that I think every component manufacturer on the planet would like to be able to do. It’s hardly likely that anyone’s ever going to develop a software upgrade that can turn a 486 into a Xeon.
Topy

Less concepts and more devices like E71!
thexcode

bazza, i’ll have some of whatever you are smoking
anant

Come on Nokia we admire u get ur Tube phone ready bash the iphone men. Get a load of uploads ready for ur existing devices via firmware updates . Then concentrate in this marvel. The problem is u develop too too many phones and fail to cater to all of them in R&D.