Japanese researchers have developed a human-shaped mobile phone with a skin-like casing to make people feel closer to the person they’re talking to. Weird!
The prototype humanoid cell phone is the “brain child” of researchers at Osaka University and mobile operator NTT DoCoMo.
The little human phone boasts a speaker in its head and a LED in its chest that turns blue when the phone is in use and red when it is in standby.
“The mobile phone may feel like the person you are talking to,” the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR) explained in a press release, describing the gadget as a “revolutionary telecom medium.”
The prototype is approximately the size of a palm and has an outer coating that feels like human skin.
If that’s not creepy enough, the developers are planning to put the phone into commercial production within five years.
The long term goal is to add image and voice recognition capabilities so the little humanoid cell phone can actually understand what you’re saying and dial the appropriate person.
All this to make you feel closer to the people you’re speaking to. But can you imagine pulling a little humanoid doll cell phone out of your purse on the bus? The looks you’d get…
The androgynous design could be mistaken for a female or a male, but hardly anyone will suspect it’s a phone.
(Via Raw Story)
