The strange feature on this phone is a little disc that the user can remove and spray with their favorite perfume. Then when the phone is near their nose on a call, they can smell the perfume and not the presumably stinky person next to them. The phone has a gold tone case and a big 2-karat cubic zirconia for decoration to help dress it up too.

Other than the color and scent disk thingy, the phone has a 8.1MP camera that has a special feature for tracking eyes to make them look larger and a feature to improve skin. The phone has a 3-inch color VGA resolution screen. The phone is waterproof and dust resistant. The battery inside the phone will last 420 hours on 3G standby and 210 minutes in 3G talk. Chances are that you’ll never see the Fujitsu Folli Follie (ph)Fone outside of China, but if you live there, it will be available starting on June 24th.

Designers Ma Yiwei and Tao Ying created the Anderson notebook to fit somewhere in-between the netbook and tablet form-factors, and I think they did a great job with their concept. The system would be about the size of a small tablet, but would have a cool keyboard module which could be used in either portrait or landscape modes.

An ingenious 2-way hinge mechanism would enable the keyboard to flip between a notebook mode and a laptop mode. I’m a little concerned about how sturdy that hinge would need to be, especially if it needs to carry cables inside of it, but if the keyboard used Bluetooth to connect to the system, then that would be less of an issue.

The entire system would measure in at just 6.5″ square, and about .67″ thick, even when closed. I guess that’s the other design concern I have. I’ve got big fingers, and have enough trouble typing on those netbooks with keys that are just a little smaller than normal ones. This would definitely not be a device that I’d want to write an essay on, but for quick emails and web surfing, it would probably be more than sufficient.

Like all of the concept designs featured in the Fujitsu Design Competition, this one will probably never see the light of day, but I’m hopeful that some of the ideas which these creative industrial designers have suggested might find their way into real products some day.

[via Yanko Design]

As with the Bento Book, the Lifebook Frame is a sort of super-dock for some of your mobile tech, including your smartphone and tablet.

This concept is by the German designers Florian Langer and Patrick Decker and received a special award. It’s one of seven shortlisted designs among the 3,000 that were submitted.

It seems to me that eventually someone might have to release something like this that will work for iPads and iPhones, because those are most common combination of tablets and smartphones. I doubt that Apple will do so, since it might compete with the MacBook Air platform.

[via designboom]

The designers of the Ecopad mention that this concept generates electricity thanks to the touches on its touch screen. They say that a nano-piezoelectricity film would capture a tiny bit of energy whenever a user presses the screen with their fingertips. It sounds like a cool idea, but I have trouble imagining how practical this would be for generating enough power to operate a tablet.

The concept is by Yonggu Do, Jun Se Kim, and Eun Ha Seo from Korea. It’s one of only 7 entries of over 3,000 that received the special award.

[via designboom]

Sono Mocci calls their concept the Nesting PC Virtual Tablet, and from what I understand it’s a 13-inch tablet that’s also meant to be a charging and syncing device. It’s certainly a great idea, since you’ll only need to plug in the tablet in order to charge multiple devices, plus it allows you to shuffle data on the go, although I think burning a CD or DVD would require a considerable battery life. Also, keep in mind that today’s tablets are not built with data transfer in mind; most of them don’t even have a file manager, let alone a USB port. In that sense, this tablet is a counterpoint to what we have today.

The other unique feature about this concept is its intuitive visualization. Whatever you plug into its ports is represented on the screen with a life-sized and detailed icon, down to the Ethernet cable and power port, almost as if you’re seeing through the screen. It’s certainly pretty to look at, and I can see how it can make transferring data a much more idiot-proof procedure. Perhaps you can drag the CD to the SD card to copy the data in the former to the latter. As you can see the complementary phone can still be used even if it’s plugged in to the tablet, which is good the whole thing goes inside the tablet.

Unfortunately for Sono Mocci their concept wasn’t chosen for any of the awards in the competition – you can take a look at this year’s winners here – and I think I can see why. The visualization concept is more eye candy than functional. For example, ports and slots already have different shapes, so unless you’re a total newbie you’ll know that what’s plugged into the USB port is a USB device or cable, and that an optical disc is inside the optical drive. Unless, of course the tablet also provides a more specific description of what’s plugged in, e.g. the name, type, size and content of a disc. Also, notice how the visualization concept is taken too far – why would you need icons of the Ethernet cable and the power plug? How would a user interact with those icons?

As touch-based interfaces become more and more mainstream, the need for tailor-made UIs becomes even more and more important, especially when it comes to managing data and different devices. Even if Sono Mocci didn’t win any awards, I hope their concept sparks an idea in someone else’s mind, one that could lead to a more practical UI. I guess that’s what concepts are for anyway.

[via designboom]

Designed by Laura Lahti for Designboom’s Fujitsu design award 2011, the Keyless Lifebook at least wins points for creativity and good looks even if it doesn’t solve for the lack of tactile feedback.

Like some other designs I’ve seen floated about, the Keyless Lifebook would replace the lower half of the laptop with a multitouch screen. But where this design blows away any other I’ve seen is the configurable keyboards. The software would allow you to position each individual component of the keyboard wherever you find it most comfortable for your wrists and fingers.

In addition, you’d be able to adjust the positition of the trackpad, and use the keyboard the way you do on iOS devices, swiping your finger across, then releasing on the character you want. The virtual keyboard design would also allow for color and language customization. It would also let you adjust the size of the trackpad and area, allowing you to turn the surface into a large drawing surface when needed.

Despite my concerns about typing speed on touchscreens, I’m still very impressed by Laura’s design, and hope that Fujitsu (or someone else out there) runs with it and adds it to an upcoming OS. It seems to me that it’s mostly just a matter of writing the software to do it.

[via Designboom]

The Flexbook would have a 21:9 11-inch folding screen and is designed to be portable. My guess that it would use a flexible OLED screen of some kind. The keyboard could also fold up and can be deployed whenever needed. It would convert from netbook into a as tablet and e-book reader when the keyboard is stowed.

The design also calls for swappable rubber skins, which will allow for further customization.

It will be interesting to see what kinds of tablets, netbooks, and smartphones manufacturers come up with when flexible OLED screens become cheaply available. It’s safe to say that tablets, smarthphones and netbooks will probably end up being combined into one device once their displays can be folded.

[via Designboom]

The design looks futuristic, but the overall specs are within the realm of possibility. Designed by René Woo-Ram Lee, the main laptop has got a 15-inch OLED screen. An 11-inch tablet sits where the keyboard should be. A 4-inch smartphone sits where the trackpad should be. This is all possible, though I don’t know how easy it will be to use the tablet as a keyboard. In my experience, I prefer a tactile response, just like many other touch-typists.

But that doesn’t stop this concept from being compelling. Only time will tell if we’ll see something like this. My guess is no, especially not for Apple devices.

In fact, the concept design has some Fujitsu branding, which is normal since it was created for a Fujitsu design award.

[via Yanko Design]

Fujitsu has unveiled two new notebook computers that both have the option of removing the optical drive and putting a little pico projector in its place. The tiny LED projector slides out of the optical drive bay and has a resolution of 800 x 600. I think most folks will be able to live without an optical drive, especially during business presentations.

The S761 is a 13.3″ screen notebook with 1366 x 768 resolution, 1GB of RAM, 160GB of storage and it can be fitted with a Celeron B810, Core i3-2310M or a Core i5-2520M. The smaller P771 has a 12.2-inch screen, and the other features are the same. Both models will hit Japan in mid-May, unfortunately with high prices to go with. The S761 will retail for ¥219,450 (appx. $2680 USD), and the P771 will go for ¥255,150 (appx. $3100).

[via Akihabra News and PC World]

This thing runs the Windows 7 operation system, which means it can run most of the software your typical desktop or notebook can run. The 10.1″ WXGA screen of the tablet has 400nits brightness, making it ideal for brightly lit office environments. The tablet is very light and portable at a bit over 1.5 pounds.

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The Q550 runs an Intel Atom processor, has 2GB of memory, and sports Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. It has front and rear facing cameras along with HDMI, a USB 2.0 port, and audio output. The machine has Gobi 3000 mobile broadband with GPS as an option and is VESA mount compatible. The Q550 will ship this spring with prices starting at under $800 (USD).

Before you accuse Fujitsu of being copycats, they’ve actually been developing the phone for quite a while, as evidenced by the footage we saw last year. But compared to the Echo, Fujitsu’s phone is clearly still a work in progress.

Personally I think they should scrap the phone’s gimmicky feature in the final product and just make it similar to the Echo. As I said, I’m not sure why they thought being able to rotate the screens independent of each other was a good idea, especially since it gives the phone a huge drawback – there’s a considerable gap between the two screens when both are in landscape mode, unlike in the Echo where the screens are nearly seamless in landscape mode.

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Fujitsu is said to be planning to make the phone available this summer or fall, and while the prototype they showed was running Symbian, the final product will be running Android. Which do you guys prefer? The Echo or it’s echo?

[via Unwired View]

Dr. Kormushev, working with a team from the Italian Institute of Technology and Tokyo City University used a technique called “upper-body kinesthetic teaching,” to help this Fujitsu HOAP-2 humanoid robot learn the approppriate maneuvers to clean the marker-covered whiteboard surface.

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On the surface (pun intended), the idea of a whiteboard-cleaning robot seems a bit silly. However, the process could someday be used to instruct robots to deal with tasks better left to ‘bots than humans – like window washing, painting walls or hanging wallpaper.

The screens are quite narrow, so landscape view is indeed the best way to make the most out of this phone.

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Both screens seem responsive, but if I had this phone I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the huge gap in the middle. It would be better if the screens extended to the edges of the phone, and if you could split the phone in two for two-player gaming. I wish I owned a tech company.

[via Akihabara News]

This robot is supposed to respond to human interactions thanks to a set of 300 pre-programmed physical and audio reactions. It’s got a camera in its nose so that it can recognize facial expressions and gestures. Apparently, they want to place this robot in nursing homes so that it can provide some digital companionship.

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I don’t know. 300 interactions doesn’t sound like much, but I’m sure that it will keep the kids pretty happy for a while. As long as it doesn’t “learn” I think I’m fine with it.

[via DVice]

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Fujitsu has just taken the wraps off its latest robotic wonder, a “social robot” bear that is probably the closest we’ve ever come in reality to that adorably grumpy robot pal from Spielberg’s movie “A.I.”

The robot can respond to human interactions with a set of 300 pre-programmed physical and audio reactions. Equipped with a camera in its nose for face and gesture recognition, Fujitsu hopes to place the robot in nursing homes as an interactive comfort aid. You can see video of the still unnamed robot bear in action above.

ENON was exhibited at CEATEC in Japan last year. Ever since then, the robot has been selling well. The robot can be used as an information terminal, for entertainment purposes, patrolling, and general assistance.

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Last weekend, ENON was seen in a shopping mall in Osaka. It spent the entire time interacting with customers. It’s equipped with a camera and face recognition software, allowing it to detect a human’s age and gender.

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ENON can also speak and move around, so it’s one particular store clerk that you won’t easily forget! During the test, ENON was able to entice different customers into going into stores, depending on their age and gender.

On top of that, ENON can use either a male of female voice to appeal to different customers. I wonder if we’ll be seeing a ‘bot like this Stateside. Here, it would probably be used to sell pre-paid cards, hand out flyers for hot dogs or try and sell you an extended warranty on your gadget purchases.

[via CrunchGear]

Okay so it’s not really top-secret technology, and I don’t think Fujitsu is willing to make a USB device that explodes to protect its data. Still, I think Fujitsu is on the right track here; us ordinary folks don’t have lots of confidential files, but I think a lot of companies will pay for this kind of portable storage. Let’s hope that Fujitsu includes a voice recorder in the finished product: “Your mission, should you decide to accept it…”

This robot, known as the HOAP-3, is part of the Humanoid for Open Architecture Platform and is sponsored by the EU’s Cogniron project, whose mission is to “develop cognitive robots whose ‘purpose in life’ would be to serve humans as assistants or ‘companions’.”

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When they hand him the big chef’s knife, though… yikes. As he chops the ham, my head swims with visions of robot overlords crushing the human rebellion with their cleavers. Maybe it’s his flashy light-up eyes and his insanely creepy voice, but I have to ask, is it just me? Or does he seem really, really evil?

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Here’s the good news. Even though this robot is pretty sharp- I think his vocabulary is bigger than mine, and his whisking skills aren’t too shabby- he can’t even crack his own eggs. And let’s be honest, HOAP-3 is slow as molasses. Irona, Rosie, and all the other cartoon robot maids were a heckuva lot more efficient. I’m just sayin’.

[via Loving The Machine]

At this week’s CEATEC show in Tokyo, Fujitsu showed off a prototype of a 7.8-inch paper-thin panel that can show 4,096 colors. The device shown was in a rigid eBook reader device, but the technology is capable of being used in flexible displays as well. In addition, this new prototype does not require that power be applied to display the image once it’s drawn, reducing power consumption significantly.

Refesh times are still a little slow – ranging from one to four seconds, depending on image complexity.

[via Macworld UK and Akihabara News]