This concept from designer Alexey Chugunnikov is a combination time-telling device and telephone, doing both things in unexpected, futuristic ways. It looks like something out of a science fiction movie, yet it’s gloriously within reach. And you want one.

It’s called the Rollerphone, and in its dormant mode, it’s a wrist band that projects the current time between its two ends. Like so:

Then, the phone part of it rings. What do you do? How do you answer this wearable piece of sexy chrome? On the underside of your wrist, you grab a slender piece of retracted metal and pull. Out slides something that would make Steve Jobs drool: a flexible, transparent touchscreen.

Sitting cozy in the palm of your hand, this screen is configurable to include smartphone features like apps, videos, music, texting, as well as a standard number pad for dialing.

Once you’ve tapped the “Answer” button, you just hold your wrist up to your face, and talk.

The projection part could probably be done today, though it would be wildly expensive. But technology like the flexible, retractable touchscreen is years away, even though scientists and engineers are already working on it. So there’s nothing here that’s outside the realm of possibility. Give it another ten years or so, and everybody could be using a Rollerphone.

Most users aren’t very tech, just yesterday I was telling a friend that people should take a test before being allowed to use a smartphone. They don’t know more then a third of what the phone can do and are the ones you hear complaining about a huge phone bill because they didn’t know to turn off data roaming when they went abroad.

The app store is so easy that if you left your 5-year old unsupervised with your iPhone and iTunes password she or he would rack up a credit card bill in no time.

Since a couple of weeks I have a Blackberry besides my iPhone and I must have been spoiled by the iPhone because it took me more then a week to get BlackBerry App World working. And downloading an app is not as straight forward as on the iPhone. I have seen courses being giving on how to use your BlackBerry for individuals and companies but never a course for the iPhone. I’m still looking to get my hands on an android phone to see how it works compared to BlackBerry and iPhone.

As you can see the phone app market is big business, for the stores that is. Only few developers make good money from their apps.

I do miss a part about store safety, we know Apple screens each and every app. That did not stop a developer to scam credit cards in the App Store. Google does not check apps added to the Android Market which resulted in apps that stole bank info from users. A safety comparison between all the app stores would be handy.

And how about that 15-year old kid who recently submitted a flash light app to Apple App Store and got it approved? Only turns out the “flashlight” app was more a tethering app that turns your iPhone into a hotspot. I’m still kicking myself for not having downloaded that app before it was removed.

Off topic: We have seen online music stores become successful and I know more people who pay for their music then getting them illegally, that used to be different. Music and app stores are successful, now ebooks stores are gaining more and more. So what is it with the movie business that they can’t follow example?

Sometimes I just don’t get Microsoft. And by sometimes, I mean most of the time.

There’s been a lot of hype around the release of Windows  Phone 7 Series, mostly because it’s touted as yet another “iPhone Killer,” just like the Droid, Storm and G1 before it. We don’t know yet whether or not WP7S is going to win versus the iPhone, but one more thing just put another hiccup in the lineup.

There are lots of people who already own Windows Phone devices, and love them. Problem is, they can’t upgrade to WP7S, per a recent report in APCMag. From the article:

Despite the HD2 meeting many of the criteria laid down in Microsoft’s ‘Chassis 1’ spec – including a 1GHz Qualcomm processor, high-res capacitive touch display, 5 megapixel camera and 3.5mm headphone jack – the phone will be ruled out for the simple reason that it has five buttons instead of the three mandated for all Windows Phone 7 devices.

That’s the official line from Microsoft, at any rate. Natasha Kwan, General Manager for Microsoft’s Mobile Communications Business in the Asia-Pacific region, told APC that the HD2 “doesn’t qualify because it doesn’t have the three buttons.”
Not that Microsoft is singling our the HD2 as a phone or even HTC as a manufacturer. “Because we have very specific requirements for Windows Phone 7 Series the current phones we have right now will not be upgradable”, Kwan explained.

So one of the big new HTC phones can’t run WP7S because it has too many buttons. Alright, so that’s a bit whack, but whatever. The really interesting thing here though is how Microsoft is clinging to their roots like Coke and Coke Classic.

For its part, Microsoft says it will not abandon the current Windows Mobile 6.x platform once Windows Phone 7 arrives. The OS will be rebranded as Windows Phone Classic and retained for budget-minded smartphone buyers as well as business customers with 6.x-based apps.

“We think there are people who will want 6.5, and the 6.x platform has a lot of enterprise and line of business apps” Kwan says.

Windows Mobile 6.X has been disastrous as a platform, and an utter failure for Microsoft. Sure, there may be large corporations who prefer that OS to the BlackBerry, but they’re in the minority. Why not just push WP7S hard and make it the wave of the future?

This reminds me of Vista and Windows 7. Vista was/is garbage, and Windows 7 is leaps forward. Yet there’s no clear upgrade path for those still running XP on their computers other than wiping the OS. How is any IT department supposed to recommend upgrading to W7 when they’d have to reinstall everything?

Two steps forward, one step back.

First images and specifications of this hot phone by Samsung have been leaked.

The picture displays an very stylish phone with sleek case, similar to the Samsung Omnia.

Rumours say the phone will come with a hot 8MP camera, Wi-Fi, GPRS, HDMI and offer HD recording. It will be available in 8GB and 16GB versions. This all is very similar to the Samsung Omnia when one thinks about it, so we will have to wait until Samsung the official specs publishes. Still, this looks like one more very desirable phone from Samsung and that not alone for it’s design, but also for the camera alone makes it desirable. HD recording in my pocket, w00t!

[via Gaj-IT]

It’s a desktop phone, really! But it sure does look like something from a Tom Cruise Mission Impossible movie, doesn’t it. I think it’s the screen monitor that made this stand out as it works it as the main console to operate everything in the unit.

It’s designed to make a family manage their connected life. In addition to the regular voice phone features it adds voice mail, contact list management, text messaging, calendar alerts and several monitors like for temperature, the weather and more. It works with any broadband provider, that’s a plus!

It’s a VOIP phone, so it will work wherever an internet wireless spot is around. Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon and Vodafone Group PLC, will sell the phone in its retail stores beginning Feb. 1. It costs $199 after a $50 rebate. Customers must sign a two-year contract with a monthly charge of $35.