Just because somebody can make a 3D animation of something doesn't mean that they can build it. I know it's a "concept", but so is this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE4Wn0cjrO4 (German, but video speaks for itself)
I hate concept videos. They solely exist to raise everyones expectations to unattainable levels. Should the product ever get released people will be disappointed by realities like battery capacity and a pico projector only working in a very dark room. I wish others would adopt Apple's strategy of announcing a product with a live demo and a release date within months of that showing.
* I get this is a Mozilla 'vision' but watching videos of the MS Courier left me bitter concept videos </rant>
What's brilliant about just making up a bunch of stuff?
"This phone has a 50mp camera, built in cinema-quality projector, Blu-Ray player, and 1TB storage. As well as an insulin monitor, sink, and magic pony."
Sure, they integrated all of these unicorns and faerie dust together very well and very convincingly, but ultimately it's still just fantasy.
The advantage of a design concept predicated on technology that's not. quite. there. yet. is that you can save embarrassment from failing to make it a reality by being dependent on technologies that may not even make it to market. Ultimately that's a form of design cowardice.
It's a decent video, but it's also just a dream with nothing restraining it in terms of feasibility.
The challenge of good design is making the best of what's possible. Concepts that are only on paper or in image don't present that challenge, and so it's hard for me to get excited by them. After all, we should have flying cars and jetpacks by now right?
If (like me) you normally skip video links, give this one a go. It's brief and all visual, so a video really makes sense in this case. And, practical or otherwise, it's creative and thought provoking!
The UI on the phone appears to be Android, while the UI projected on the screen looks an awful lot like Windows 7. Running Win7 in a VM on a phone seems like it would be pushing the hardware a bit.
A bit more seriously, how production-ready are IR-based input devices and pico projectors? I get the impression that this is more sci-fi than a design study for a practical product based on current technology.
They should have made the projected keyboard more Swype-y.
I think though that in the existing IR keyboards there's one beam for "drawing" the keyboard, and a second invisible beam parallel with the surface which actually detects where your fingers are pressing. It's not clear where that second beam is coming from in this video. You could probably do the touchpad with just that single invisible beam, though of course iPhone and Android aren't made for touchpads and cursor arrows, but rather for direct finger interaction.
Some things, like the translater aren't too hot first generation type deals, I wouldn't conduct a business meeting with it. But I might haggle over the price of some clothes in a border town market in Mexico.
