Well would you look at that, the perfect phone. All it took was a couple extra panels and there it was, all conceptualized and turned into a short ad for the world to see. This is a vision of a smartphone that takes the idea of flipping out an extra section (for a keyboard, for a speaker, etc.,) and took it a couple steps further. Designer Kristian Ulrich Larsen presents one lovely triangle.

I must remind you here again that this is a conceptual design, and is thusly not entirely built with the current state of technology in mind. Take a peek at the video below “What is being creative?” Starring we believe Kristian Larsen herself, taking this phone PAST the production stage and releasing it as a real product via a lovely two minute ad.

The screens are covered with Gorilla Glass, each of the screens is a flexible Super AMOLED (somehow both of these things are possible,) there’s steel mesh holding each screen to the next, LED colored lines run along several sides, and the rest is made of aluminum. Oh, and it’s an Android.

Click here to view the embedded video.

[Via Yanko Design]

Welcome to the first post Christmas Week in Review! I hope you had a great Christmas, let’s get right to it. We heard Monday that wireless carriers were openly looking at ways that they can charge users a fee per service. It seems like a scheme to get user to take advantage of the sponsored services that the carrier offers rather than using third party services. Carrier services are expected to be offered free while things like YouTube would cost 50 cents monthly.

A doctoral candidate student has written a dissertation over the effects that MMORPG games have on college students. The study found that some students lose sleep and don’t eat to play their games and a large portion admits that games interfere with studies and work. A really sweet electric racing motorcycle surfaced this week called the Mission R. The bike is capable of 160mph and has a 141hp electric motor.

We reviewed the Nokia X3-02 Touch and Type mobile phone this week. We figure the thing isn’t perfect but it will satisfy most mainstream users. We reviewed the Google Cr-48 Chrome OS notebook computer early in the week. This is a strange rig where the hardware will never be sold and the software is what the story is about and we figure there is a lot to do before the OS launches next year.

Pioneer unveiled a set of white DJ gear this week. The hardware is a pearl white version of the CDJ-350 and DJM-350 that debuted in black back early in 2010. They FCC voted to enact some net neutrality rules this week and the vote was commented on by Woz, Verizon, and others. Naturally, the carriers hated the rules and others loved the new regulations.

A pic of a dude holding what appears to be a mini iPad surfaced this week. The guy holding the supposed mini iPad is some sort of racecar driver. I call shenanigans. Elliptic Labs showed off a cool touchless iPad dock that uses gestures to control the dock. The gesture interface of the dock will be shown off at CES next month.

We were sent some pics of what is supposedly some shots of a new HTC smartphone. The pics are suspected to be the HTC Incredible HD and would be a 4G device. GM announced early in the week that it is recycling the oil booms used to clean up the oil spill in the gulf in the production of plastic parts for the Volt. The plastic is being used to make the radiator covers for the car.

Chinese researchers devised a way to store data inside bacteria this week. The catch was that the bacteria could mutate and lose data and getting the data out was expensive and tedious. A crazy app for the iPhone launched called NoseDial. The app lets you dial the smartphone using your nose for folks in areas where they have to wear gloves.

The Nokia N900 got its own port of Android 2.3 this week. The port came from a dude going by DrunkDebugger and isn’t quite 100% functional but offers core features like WiFi, Audio, and others. A great tragedy happened when the infamous and uber geeky Tron Guy was barred from watching Tron: Legacy in his Tron suit. Apparently, the theater thought it would be distracting.

Skype went down leaving hoards of users without the ability to make calls and video chat mid-week. The outage started at about 3:30 on Wednesday and affected users in the US, Asia, and Europe. Skype was still having issues on Thursday, but was back online with 30% of its normal user base having access to the service. The downtime was blamed on a supernode issue.

Logitech stopped the production of its Revue Google TV box this week. The device will apparently go back into production when a new version of Google TV software lands. The Nokia N900 got the ability to control the sweet Parrot AR.Drone flying machine that was an iPhone only controlled device until now. I still think the AR.Drone is the coolest accessory for a smartphone ever.

A patent app from Canon surfaced this week that shows a really cool way the company is looking to take advantage of NFC equipped smartphones. Canon wants to use the NFC device as a display screen for your DSLR when shooting pics. High-end and crazy expensive home theater and audio gear maker Bang & Olufsen unveiled a new home theater remote this week called the Beo6. Apparently, it adds some new controls along with WiFi.

I always thought those tubes that they use at banks for sending things through the drive through were cool. A concept tube travel system for people and equipment called ET3 has been unveiled that would allow you to travel from New York to Beijing in two hours at 4000mph and it reminds me a lot of those bank drive though systems. This sounds really out there to me. Thanks for reading this week’s edition!

By Andrew Liszewski

A few years ago Fossil dabbled in smart watches with a line that featuring Microsoft’s SPOT technology. While I developed a soft spot for them, I was clearly in the minority since they never really caught on. (Admittedly they were a bit bulky and garish.) But the company has learned from those earlier missteps, and are now showing off a new prototype smart watch (well before they plan to introduce it to the market) to drum up support from developers.

Unlike the SPOT watches which worked kind of like an RSS feed on your wrist for weather updates, news, sports scores, etc. Fossil’s new watch connects to Android or Blackberry smartphones via Bluetooth to keep you up to date on your email inbox, caller ID and presumably Twitter and Facebook updates if they want any chance of interesting consumers. The prototype pictured above definitely looks a lot thinner than its SPOT forefathers, but while the pixelated monochromatic LCD display is kind of stylish, smart watches will always be at a functional disadvantage due to their limited screen real estate. But who knows, maybe the second time’s the charm?

[ Scobelizer - The concept “connected” watches from Fossil ] VIA [ Android Community ]

Oh conceptual design, how awesome thou art. This is the “Second Life Mobile Phone Concept” by Cho Sinhyung & Jeon Jungjae, a phone that employs both a lovely AMOLED screen in glorious full color when it’s active, and an E-Ink display when it sits in standby mode. Juice saver deluxe! Furthermore, the degree of transparency in the screen shows the percentage of battery remaining. Fade away like you’re Marty McFly. Futuristic.

Forever running out of power? Everyone is, even if you plug your phone in every chance you get. While this concept is based around the life of the battery, take a peek at the excellence in the aesthetics as well. Seems like it’d have more than a couple fingerprints on it on the daily, and maybe it’s breakable, but heck if it doesn’t look spectacular.

[Via Yanko Design]

By Andrew Liszewski

While we get emails all day long about new product announcements, the majority of them are for cases designed for the iPhone or other iDevices. Like by a longshot. Occasionally a clever or useful design will come along, but most of the time our eyes will just glaze over at the monotony of seeing the same thing again and again. But every once in a while there’s a rare gem that gets us really excited, or leaves us scratching our heads. The iBlackBoard, which is thankfully just a design concept by KALOMIX LIMITED, falls into that latter category.

Now I can see the benefit of being able to quickly jot down notes without even having to unlock the iPhone, or even being able to sketch your own custom case design, but with chalk?! Really? Not only does it mean you have to carry a piece of chalk around, but that dust is going to inevitably find it’s way inside every nook and cranny of your phone. And when that happens please let me know because I’d like to be there the day you try and explain your situation to the Genius at the Apple Store.

[ KALOMIX LIMITED - iBlackBoard iPhone Case Concept ] VIA [ GadgetReview ]

This was a big week for mobile phone fans with the unveiling and leaks of hoards of Windows Phone 7 handsets. Among those handsets was the HTC HD7 also known as the Schubert. The specs of the handset leaked Monday. T-Mobile’s pricing for the Samsung Galaxy Tab in the US also leaked early in the week. The device will be $399 with a new contract after a $50 MIR or $649 sans contract.

Vuzix’s WRAP 920AR augmented reality glasses started shipping early in the week. The glasses are aimed at the pro market and have a giant price tag of almost $2000. Another of the Windows Phone 7 handsets came out this week with the Samsung Omnia 7 being unveiled. The handset has a 4-inch screen, 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 5MP camera, and 8GB of storage among other things.

HTC offered up details on what handsets running Windows Phone 7 would be landing on what carriers and the dates when they will be there. Among the handsets was the HTC 7 Surround that will hit AT&T in the US and TELUS in Canada on November 7. A lady offered up directions last week for making a very cool Storm Trooper helmet that is made from milk jugs. The helmet looks very much like the real thing and would be a great Halloween mask for a kid.

We spent some hands on time on video with the HTC 7 Mozart this week. The handset is a Windows Phone 7 offerings and looks very cool. We also went hands on with the Samsung Focus WinPo 7 handset. The thing has a 4-inch super AMOLED screen and a lot more.

A sweet steampunk Iron Man costume won a Marvel costume contest at Comic com in NYC. The thing was very cool and deservingly won the first place. We also spent hands on time with the Venue Pro WinPo 7 handset. This is a big phone with a QWERTY keyboard and a 4.1-inch screen.

A new app for Android smartphones turned up that is called Lego Mindroid. The app is designed to allow the user to control Lego Mindstorm NXT robots. Lexus unveiled the world’s most advanced driving simulator this week. The thing is on rails in a building the size of a football field and has a full-size car under the massive dome.

Some images of the Palm Pre 2 surfaced from France that shows a handset looking much like the older phone. Hopefully, this smartphone will be better than the original that didn’t fare too well in the market. We reviewed the Acer Aspire TimelineX 18030T this week. The GPU left us wanting more, but overall the notebook is very good.

Sony pulled the wraps off several of its TVs with Google TV service built in this week. The sets ranged from 26-inch to 46-inch offerings and included a cool Google TV remote with a keyboard built-in. The coolest Wii Remote ever was unveiled at Toys R Us from Lego called the Lego Play and Build remote. The thing comes with several blocks that can be connected to the front of the controller and will ship this month.

The iPhone 4 has a 82% higher rate of damage than the iPhone 3GS. That makes sense with twice as much glass to crack in a drop. TomTom unveiled a new custom printing option for some of its GPS devices. The GPS devices can be printed with images TomTom offers or the users own images that are uploaded.

Lensbaby unveiled a new optic called the Scout with Fisheye that will fit different DSLR cameras. The Scout optic is not movable like other offerings from the company. Apple is having an event on October 20 for media with a Lion behind the Apple. Presumably, the event is for a new OS version, I’m not lion.

T-Mobile has unveiled new prepaid mobile plans with voice, text and data at different price points. There are also some new plans strictly for mobile data as well. The MeeGo mobile operating system has finally come to the N900 for those that have been waiting. The N900 can be dual booted with MeeGo and the factory OS for those brave enough to try it out.

We went hands-on with the HP Envy 17 3D notebook late in the week. The notebook has a 17.3-inch screen and while too big for mobile use, the 3D effects were very nice. A man from the UK created a mobility scooter that is set to take on the world’s record for fastest scooter. The man is aiming at 70mph top speed and the scooter uses a 125cc engine from a motorcycle.

Former Apple CEO John Sculley has taken the blame for the near death of Apple on his shoulders. He gave an interesting interview about his time at Apple this week that is worth a read. A cool new projector concept for kids has turned up called KLEXL smart projector that lets kids draw on the wall without getting grounded. The projector is a concept, but I could see this selling well. Thanks for reading this week’s Week in Review!

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

• SlashGear Week in Review – June 23rd
• Apple MacBook and MacBook Pro Could Show Up Next Week
• SlashGear TV Week in review Episode 1
• New Canon Rebel DSLR with better video capture, incoming next week?
• SlashGear week in review, issue 1

By Chris Scott Barr

Today is just full of brilliant ideas for the iPhone. Though technically, this one works on many phones (they just chose the iPhone to demonstrate how even a good-looking phone can be made hideous), not just Apple’s powerhouse. This blight on your eyes is called the Earos, which apparently makes your phone more comfortable to hold against your ear.

I don’t know about you, but it takes an awful lot of talking on my phone to actually make my ear start to hurt. Which leads me to believe there is a cheaper alternative that will provide you with an even more comfortable experience. I like to call it “don’t talk on the phone so damn much.” Seriously, if you talk on the phone for so many hours each day that you’re thinking of adding a giant toilet seat-shaped accessory to your (now non-)mobile phone, I think you might want to re-think what you’re doing with your life. If you do actually want one of these things, you’ll have to wait until it gets out of the concept stage.

[ Yanko ]

By Andrew Liszewski

While it’s nothing more than just a concept brought to life via some nifty 3D renders, I think there’s a lot of potential in this Mobile Wind Turbine that can be moved and deployed almost anywhere it can be driven. I’m not particularly inclined to go through the proposed ’specs’ since because it’s a concept I’ve no idea if they’re even plausible. But in an ideal world the Mobile Wind Turbine could be driven and setup by a single operator, and would feature an on-board stash of batteries for storing power when it’s not windy enough for it to generate any of its own.

The vehicle itself would also be electrically powered keeping with the eco-friendly theme of the concept, though a backup gas generator on board would provide power to the electric motors ensuring it would never get stranded even when the batteries were depleted. And besides coming to the rescue in emergency situations, the Mobile Wind Turbine would also probably come in handy at music events, concerts, carnivals and maybe even the circus could bring one along. Though the cost of renting/operating the turbine would have to end up being a far better bargain than traditional fossil fuel burning mobile generators.

[ Pope Design - Mobile Wind Turbine ] VIA [ Ecofriend ]

By Andrew Liszewski

If you share my obsession with neat and tidy cables and wiring then there’s a good chance you’re also going to wish that designers Lee Ji Eun, Yi-Seo Hyeon, Heo-Hyeoksu and Jeong Minhui have the funding (and lobbying power) to get all the electronics manufacturers of the world to adopt their brilliant cable design. The Line Block Cable concept kind of works like tongue and groove flooring, or even LEGO bricks for that matter, allowing you to attach and stack your cables together into a neat single trunk line without the need for zip ties or velcro straps to keep things in order. Now I’m sure there are some logistical issues to be worked out, as well as the need for manufacturers to settle on a standard design to make it truly useful, but a boy can dream can’t he?

[ Yanko Design - Line Up The Tangles ]

By Andrew Liszewski

The concept dates back to January of 2009 so it’s definitely not new, but the Letout Outlet, designed by Damjan Stankovi?, is new to me. Of course given it’s almost two years old now makes me a little discouraged since we’ll probably never see something like this go into production, even though the idea is genius. Basically it’s your standard single wall outlet that pops-out to become five outlets instead. No need for power bars, splitters or whatever crap currently sits piled up below the outlets in your home.

[ Letout Outlet ] VIA [ Freshome ]