The authentic cypress wood body of the prototype, which is named TOUCH WOOD, features excellent durability and resistance to water, insects and mildew thanks to special three-dimensional compression molding developed by Olympus Corporation. Conventional natural wood is not suitable for use as mobile phone bodies because they tend to wear out quickly.

The TOUCH WOOD is made from the surplus wood of trees culled during forest-thinning operations. This new commercial use for thinned wood, which traditionally has only limited applications, helps to preserve other wood resources while strengthening the health of overgrown forests.

[via k-tai]

The Morph concept, launched alongside the Museum of Modern Art “Design and The Elastic Mind” exhibition last winter, showcases some revolutionary leaps being explored by Nokia Research Center (NRC) in collaboration with the Cambridge Nanoscience Centre (United Kingdom). Elements of Morph might be available to integrate into handheld devices within 7 years, though initially only at the high-end. However, nanotechnology may one day lead to low cost manufacturing solutions, and offers the possibility of integrating complex functionality at a low price.

Apparently Heikki Juvonen “has focused on the design usability by creating a new balance in structure” as Design Launches blog wrote.

[via Concept Phones]

What campaign? “The campaign for the pursuit of gadget excellence,” as they wrote on the website. They even asked you to sign up to support their petition to the industry’s big boys: Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, BlackBerry, Apple and the rest. The reason?

For far too long we’ve been at the mercy of the mobile industry dictating crawling upgrades and minor revamps. The iPhone 3G, is, of course, a worthy stab at creating the perfect mobile phone, however 3G internet should have been top of the original’s feature list.

Super-slick emailing not seen since the BlackBerry Bold; perfect music-playback, as packed in Sony Ericsson’s W980 plus the Nokia N82’s 5.0-megapixel all inspired us to create the 01 Phone. Of course, we used a heck of a lot of artistic license. The laser keyboard, for instance, and the 32GB of internal storage. Our point is, however, is that all this technology is available now, so why hasn’t something akin to the 01 Phone actually been created by a manufacture?

Sound interesting, but it’s totally weird. How come all mobile users need similar features and specifications in one phone? And each manufacture has each own need and vision, too. They made their handset based-on a certain of market researches, user behavior studies, and so on.

Perhaps, a look at the Motorola Z12 might bring about some transformation in opinions. The phone is a treat to the eyes with a 2.8-inch display that boasts of 16M color VGA resolution. Since most phones these days are outfitted with exceptional cameras, it is hardly surprising that Motorola has chosen to go the 5MP way. Evidently, the Z12 also features a touch-sensitive keypad that lends a stylish dimension to this sleek beauty.

[via CellPhoneBeat]

The Nokia BMW comes with an interesting “push to open” mechanism that makes its display rotate 90 degrees turning the whole device into a handycam. Notice the original camera placement? Sony would probably love to invent something like this…

[via CellPhoneBeat]

“All this while you thought you couldn’t do without your handycam, phone, musicplayer etc. but if Sony has its way, you may be able to have just one gadget that does it all for you. It will be your mobile phone, still-camera, video recorder, PDA, music player; in short everything bundled together. This concept phone has a unique twist to it, to lock it or use it; you need to twist the movable base. It sports a 5 MP camera and has dual mode. You can either use the simple keypad or a stylus for inputs…”

Too good to be true?

[DesignLaunches via 3GWeek]

T3 wrote:

On an unknown (until now) website titled just www.the01phone.com, lies a handset that will blow all others out of the water. With a 5.0-megapixel camera, 3G internet, and a whopping 32GB of storage, the 01 – as it’s believed to be called – could mean the death of the Nokia N96, the BlackBerry Bold and Samsung’s INNOV8 i850.

Although T3 admitted that they don’t know about this gadget, as 3Gweek wrote, yet they dare to list its specification. Weird isn’t?

Whatever it is, it has a countdown on the homepage, with 27 days left, so let’s wait and see….

Check out the video again below if you wish.

Click here to view the embedded video.

 Source [se-nse]