Famous designer Mac Funamizu has a summer treat for us, that includes two items: URSLA and BERTHA. URSLA is a futuristic pendant that projects 3D images in the air and it’s able to sync with the mobile phone.
The device shows notifications regarding emails, phone calls, schedule and much more, that will appear in the air for a few seconds. As far as BERTHA goes, the futuristic handset works with the 3D pendant and looks like a pretty hot transparent device. This looks like an iPhone from the future, to be honest and a very cool one for that matter, that looks like it’s made from some crystal or sort of glass.
Just how far we are from hologram handsets we don’t know, but such concepts give us hope that we’re close enough to futuristic gizmos. It will be interesting to see what source of power the pendant uses… maybe wireless charging?
The original designer Mac Funamizu had an interesting idea of a lockscreen, inspired by the one on the MIUI software. He thought that the iPhone user should also do something fun when unlocking the screen, stuff like shooting a billiards ball or a bowling ball towards some upper screen area targets.
It’s always a pleasure to get ride of the routine of doing the same actions on a smartphone, I’ll give you that much. If you can find three variations of the action performed to unlock a device, then I’m sold. I guess that this is not at all hard to do, if you have some developing skills and mess with ROMs constantly…
It’s been a while since the last Mac Funamizu concept, but here we are again with the Von phone sketch. This device is sensitive to sound, especially the sound it makes when “knocked on”. As far as size goes, Von is as long as the iPhone, but a bit narrower.
You may knock on the phone to see if you got any new emails or texts and if you really received one of those, Von will knock back. There’s a different sound for each type of message received (text or email). If you shake the handset, you’ll see if you have unread tweets or RSS feeds and the more they are the more the phone rattles.
The idea behind this concept is similar to the one of a kid ratting a candy box to see how many chocolates he’s got left. Another incredibly cool feature is the ability to tap to the rhythm of a song on the screen and the device will recognize the tune simply through your taps. Pretty good idea, I have to say!
Imagine that you take the best picture of your life with an iPhone 4… Then you want to print it and there’s no PC around to be found or a wireless printer for that matter. Well, Mac Funamizu has a great idea: an iPhone dock that instantly prints photos after you take them.
This is the Polaroid iPhone dock concept and there’s also the option of adding a QR core for the URL of the pic on the back. As an extra, you can geotagg a photo and include the map to show where the photo was taken. This is a brilliant idea and I sure hope we’ll be seeing such cases soon. After all, the iPhone 4 is almost ready to surpass all point and shoot cameras in Flickr uploads, right?
For those of you who don’t know, Mac Funamizu is a very prolific designer and he’s located in Japan. Now, he’s just posted on his blog that he’s OK and even published a new concept phone, the Zimmer. After hearing about the tragic 9.0 magnitude quake, it’s nice to know that the designer is feeling good, in spite of water, gasoline and vegetables shortages.
Back to the concept, the Zimmer use an Apple-ish form factor, but it’s also something that we’d imagine Nokia would do in the future. It’s got a slim case, a tiny Home button (possibly capacitive), a pretty big touchscreen and large edges at the top and bottom. No idea if this device has a camera or not…
Will you find this handset comfortable to use? Before you answer that, let us wish all the best to Mac Funamizu, his family and all the people of Japan.
Whenever you say Mac Funamizu, we get ready for a glossy and futuristic concept, like the transparent phone pictured below. Known as the Thru Phone, this device uses two sliding parts, one as the main touchscreen and the other as the virtual keyboard, but we’re sure it’s also able to serve as a secondary display.
What’s really incredible about this see-through phone design is the fact that each and every action performed by the Thru Phone becomes a game. For example, when you get an email notification, fireworks will appear on screen, while the phone placed near a pen and some other objects on your desk will turn them into an on-screen animation.
You’ll see little goblins pulling a piece of paper, or a spaceship attacking your pencils, brushes, books… This is augmented reality taken to a new level and if this baby can fill a classroom with annoying pupils when everyone’s outside, it’ll be a ton of fun to mess with. Great work!
Mac Funamizu is back and he’s delivering an interesting concept phone, the Nagisa, that apparently means “beach” in Japanese. This device is the definition of tranquility and according to the designer, a part of it is made of glass. Mac considers Nagisa a mere phone sketch, so he might tweak the handset later on.
As you can see, the device is very slim, but its numeric keys manage to stand out on the front side. No trace of a camera on the unit and there’s no port to be seen, so this must be the prototype of a future device. We’re assuming that a minimalistic interface accompanies this minimalistic phone design, but we’ll let you know more once Mac Funamizu finishes the project.
If you’ve seen Minority Report, Surrogates, Gamer (the movies) and played a Final Fantasy title with futuristic setting, you know what to expect from the following video. We’ve discovered it on Mac Funamizu‘s blog, as he was the one who designed the user interface for a future computer, in the SoftBank Information Revolution video. Here’s how it looks like:
We have to say that the future looks a bit scary, but the interface concept is really neat, sort of like a carousel UI taken to the next level. The thing is that you’ll interact with computers via touch, but also (as we get it) via thought and eye contact. Voice control is also in there, we bet.
A huge amount of people interacting at the same time in a network of thoughts… sure sounds scary, specially if there’s a huge company controlling all of this…
Futuristic phones are back… from the future! Courtesy of Mac Funamizu, the Cobalto concept phone from Minority Report is now rendered in the following images. You’ve got to love that transparent glass display and the deformable metal parts, that allow you to use either usual numeric keys, or an iPod-like dial.
Mac Funamizu goes even further and envisions his concept featuring 3D holography and being able to created 3D objects in thin air. The designer also created a PC with the same Minority Report concept, but more on that in another article.
For now, we’re stunned by the Cobalto phone, looking so slick and glossy that it could slip one’s hands for good. What features would you add to it?
Designer Mac Funamizu has had his works showcased on our site a bunch of times and now he’s back for some more glory, thanks to the iPetals iPhone charger. This device also serves as a dock and its design is inspired from the personal solar charger created by Fandy Meng and dubbed Sunny Flower.
Mac Funamizu’s latest work uses solar energy to juice your iPhone and you can use it as a stand for the phone. It’s a sustainable product we’re dealing with and it integrates colored petals, mimicking a flower in bloom during the day and contracting in order to dock the iPhone.
