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]