Why is Nokia always trying to outdo everyone with its fancy-schmancy concepts and designs? Why can't they just get in line and keep it simple? We may never know the answer to those questions, but what we do know is that the company is presenting a new concept device called the Morph that would be right at home... in the year 3000. The unit is included in the MoMA's "Design and the Elastic Mind" exhibition catalog, and boasts the ability to stretch and flex to almost any shape a user could think of. The nanotechnology-based device would deliver transparent electronics, self-cleaning surfaces, and the malleability to transform into any number of configurations. Of course, the actual technology required to put this together is years or even decades away, though Nokia expects to see some of these innovations making their way into high-end products within seven years. See the device doing its thing in some photos after the break.
Update: Tipster Pdexter pointed us to a video of the Morph in "action" -- check it out after the break.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
posted Feb 25th 2008 9:58AM
Holy Smokes Batman!
I call it the iPhoney. Take that, iPhone.
It may do everything you ask it to, but it all boils down the greatest task of all...
Does it blend?
Whoa!!! I have one of these in my basement. Lawsuit Time!
me2. too bad it's all immoral and stuff according to middle america. =)
The idea of this is preposterous! This whole idea is the brain work of the devil! So very, very immoral and degrading!!! ...or at least that's what I hear... Maybe not...
This is awesome. It's about time i start seeing some great strides in technology. It is seriously overdue.
In what sense? Technological progress has been accelerating steadily since the industrial revolution. Remember, it is a natural human tendency to over-estimate short term change and under-estimate long term change.
Not that I disagree with you Alex but did you pull that quote about technological progress straight from the latest Wired magazine? LOL
This is clearly alien technology!
hahahahahaha classic comment
Are these CGI renders or just real life mockups? They look awesome :D
@ Mic2000
They look like CGI images cos the woman's hand in the last picture looks a bit "cut-out".
Anyway, the first thing I thought when I saw the first picture is: Oh, wow! It looks like the Original Xbox's dashboard! (with that hideous green)
Planning for the future is nice and all, I suppose, but how many generations in the future is this?
I'd like to have something similar now! I want it noooooww!!!
Yes!! but will it bring me genuine happiness and life fulfilment???
oh
am I in the wrong forum?
If you hold it in one hand, you can use the other for happiness and fulfillment.
And the Funniest Comment of the Day award goes to... PATSY!!!
i'm serious. quite clever, old chap.
@patsy
LOL..:)). Best.Comment.Evar!!!1
"Why is Nokia always trying to outdo everyone with its fancy-schmancy concepts and designs? Why can't they just get in line and keep it simple?"
I hope to god that's a joke
Me too, i seriously wonder who they get writing for Engadget sometimes seeing as the ENTIRE website is devoted to consumer goods which depend on some companies stepping out of the box and looking into new technology in order to give us updates on. Otherwise we would be stuck with the same things forever.
it's this new thing some professor at Yale invented a couple weeks ago. i believe it's called sarcasm.
Wait a minute!! You guys crap all over any home brewed 3D rendering/Photochop of what some dude in his basement wants the next iGadget to look like. Then you cream in your pants over some 3D rendering/Photochop a real phone maker produces? We won't see things like this in our life times.
Will you report all my ideas on Engadget as well?
Hey, thi is smart on Nokia's part, they're c**k-blocking Apple...Because you know that if Apple decides to do something that everyone will like and is futuristic and should be commonplace they'll just patent it and keep everyone locked out... (tactile touch screen feedback, touchscreen gestures, "look and feel" of everything iMac-ish [crap, I just used a copyrighted word], the use of the prefix "i" to denote "coolness")
Good job Nokia...I, for one, gladly welcome the day when I can carry around a piece of electronics that will cost thousands of dollars and when it gets infected with a virus, will have the ability to ACTUALLY infect me (via the nanotech)!
But otherwise...holy crap that's cool as hell looking!
Shut up. :)
I can read her text...
Sorry guys, it does'nt play Doom!
Ahh but will it blend!
In Nokia's future DOOM plays YOU!
Oh, and it will probably play Crysis, if Microsoft still supports DX9/10 in 3001.
It should be: 'Doesn't' You had the apostrophe in the wrong place.
Yes, but it plays Duke Nukem Forever.
My word! Two/thirds of me finds this nanotechnology morally unacceptable!
Thank God I have other news sources which are far more fair and balanced than this outrageous "Engadget" schlock!
As for me I am waiting for somebody to make a K/A theme of this "Nokia's Nanotech Morph" for the PPC!
I already have an touch screen interface on the handheld device, just need a K/A U.I. and I am good to go!
I wonder if those guys over their at xda-developer has seen this link... Hum???
Pie in the sky and no one alive will see this fly, because it’s as far into the future as the minds eye, so why not just make this today Nokia guy?
http://www.eternal-champions.com/images/efc_device.jpg
The fact that they think this is viable for the year 3000 really shows that whoever involved in this project simply doesn't "get it" with technology trends.
I think Peter F Hamilton's vision of future technology trends in the "Nights Dawn" series really gets it. "Nanonics" are nanocomputers that "implant" into your body and use your brain's natural cognitive and mental abilities to interact with computer systems. I think this is VERY likely the way things are going and it will be done WELL before the next 992 years.
Shouldn't this be: Nokia unveils CGI renderings of technology they've seen somewhere in some movie as 'concepts' in desperate bid to attract attention away from Apple's iPhone?
You know Nokia has been releasing these concepts before iphone? Look what you did made me talk something that has nothing to do with the topic!!
I want to own Aoeon it's just too sexy! Dosent matter if it's iphone nano or Nokia's i just want it.
*Aeon
why not just a com badge...star trek...
So this is what KITT is made out of.
Yeah it's one amazing peace of tech
Try to guess I'm posting this from that unbeleivable device..
Laughing at all
Oh, man! They didn't tell us it had a time machine; that's even better than Gmail Custom Time!
http://mail.google.com/mail/help/customtime/index.html
Video of these concepts.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=IX-gTobCJHs
What does the "69" button do?
LOL!! I had to go back and look, but you're right, there is a damn "69" button on the phone-looking Morph... craziness! now THAT is progress!
My only question: Will that interface be compatible with Wife v1.0?
OMG. Dorks.
That's not a "69" button. It's a zodiac symbol for Cancer; The face is covered in Zodiac symbols.
What are they teaching you kids these days?
You mean, what were they teaching us kids in the 80's?
Apparently cooler things than zodiac signs.
Cooler things .. come on zodiac signs come in in what is known as common knowledge
ps: id like to have one of thous ... but i want it now!
Amazing!!! a phone article where someone isn't saying how much better the iPhone is!!
anybody remember 888 ?
remember how long it's been since it's common to have a PC? perhaps some 15 years. And look how far we've come. Everyone has a PC, an MP3 Player that does way more than play music, A digital camera and a mobile phone that does way more than make phonecalls. All this in some 15 years!
who of you still says this is technology of the year 3000? 992 years from now?
I think Nokia doesn't go that wrong by saying that the first parts of this technology can be realized in the next seven years. In like 20 years (longer than we all have computers in our houses) this whole thing is reality! Perhaps fashion has changed then so it'll look somehow different.
so long... Greetz sakana atama
hey! they stole the apple "slide to unlock" thing!!
burn it!!!!
This is impressive, however
im pundering with e-ink/paper technology you could probably achieve something "close" to this, already.
and i stress "close to" not everything.
example
having a 3 part e-paper display which can be folded out to produce a full display and then folded in to produce the smaller handheld as soon in the video
off course the form factor and mobile calling abilities would "currently" reduce form factor.
and create bulk.
though other aspects im sure are way way off, if not impossible.
Another thing is, if you have nano tech being able to created this stuff, why wouldnt it be used to just kill handsets all together and go full
ghost in the shell telecom, via brain to brain
communications. i.e.(technological telephany) which we all know is what cellphone technology will eventually end up as.
does no one else not notice that in the year 3000, everything is so green(economicly speaking) that they're covering their damn buildings with green, as well as having their singular electronic device purely green. i'd much rather have a FULL COLOR DISPLAY that dosnt leave my desk, instead of a green one that i can take with me everywhere.
Maybe she had the "green" theme enabled =/
iI guess Apple would do it better :D
I guess Apple would do it better :D
Nokia Aeon, where are you!
http://images.google.ca/images?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGIH_enCA260CA260&q=Nokia+Aeon&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi
um, no.
I hope to be alive to see these happen one day. I love it.
I also love how long it takes the device to process the "wallpaper" from the bag photo. Yes, folks, even in the future, we will still have load times.
"Why can't they just get in line and keep it simple?
Dude, that design is the very *essence* of simplicity. It's a blank page, committed to nothing, not even a form factor.
I live for shit like this. Bravo to Cambridge and Nokia for giving us a glimpse of the future, as seen from 2008. I hope I'm around in 30 years to look back on this and see how naive our predictions were (as they always are). By the time we can have devices that can transform into any shape or color, the notion of using a 'screen' may seem quaint, replaced by a nanotechnology device that projects images directly onto the retina, or something we can't even imagine today.
The year 3000 and we still have to use our HANDS? COME ON, THAT REQUIRES BODY MOVEMENT!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40Vhzn4YcOk
Glad to see Nokia will have ditched S60 by the year 3000
I'd be spillin honey on that all day long...
~~~~Dream Waves~~~~
Back in my day we had to get cases and windex you little farts you don't know how good you have it. Now, get out of here grandpa's going to nano some porn old school style.
~~~~~Dream Waves~~~~~
Hey i think that chick was prego in the eggo her nano turned pink.
I really want the Haptics feature, NOW. Touchscreens that have 3D bevels based on contexts... That's like combining buttons with touchscreen. THIS WOULD BE SO AWESOME!!!
i guess all you guys that don't like the technology to evolve are sons of b... hipocratic asses! Without nokias developments we would end up with some shit-looking brick sized phones 'n shit, so don't pull this crap "ohmy god it's evil thing, god would never want this to happened to be" - just makes me sick
Yeah, the Morph is way out there, but this kind of visioning really says something about how we get to this point in the future. We may never actually see a morph in real life, but over time aspects of the morph will gradually make it into our handsets. Read more about it on our futurists' blog, ChangeWaves: http://changewaves.socialtechnologies.com
Personally I just want to buy it.