Concept phones Gallery on Le Monde

French daily Le Monde published an amazing gallery of concept phones last Friday.

Below are are my two favorites:

The soap phone, it's washable.

The fold-a-phone. So thin, you can fold it like paper.

View full gallery.

[via RaphaelHunold/Twitter]

The Bathphone

Spotted on Trendhunter, the bathphone concept phone. To take calls while you soak. By South Korean designer Yoon Ungnoh.

DoCoMo Shows Off Concept Phone Made from Wood

Japan's NTT DoCoMo says that it has developed a mobile phone prototype made with the surplus wood of trees culled during thinning operations to maintain healthy forests. The prototype was created in collaboration with Sharp, Olympus and "more trees," a reforestation project founded by musician Ryuichi Sakamoto and others.

[via Cellular News]

Related concept phones made out of wood:

-- The nautical-aesthetic S-SERIES wooden mobile phone

-- S-series: wood-like concept mobile phone

-- The CulArt concept phone

-- Woood (2007) - Smart Phone Concept

-- The Ziricote (wooden) PHONE. One of a kind by Hulger

-- Gresso's mobile phone made of African Blackwood and Gold

-- Wooden handmade Cellphones from Mozambique

-- Hand-carved wooden phones from Russia

-- Fand-carved wooden "phones" from Helsinki

The Molecular Telephone

Spotted on Yanko Design, a Molecular Telephone concept. By Tjep Design for the O2 company.

A new Color Rings Cell Phone Concept

Spotted on IntoMobile via Ubergizmo, a new Color Rings ‘Handset’ concept from designers bck. We haven't seen one of these since 2004.

In their own words: The color rings are an accessory for cell phones that are inspired in the gestural language of the use of the phone. It is conceived as an extension of the hand, which makes their use a more natural one, and more comfortable and more attractive as well.

Other Ring Phones:

-- The Ring Phone - The winning submission at the 2004 Siemens Design Challenge. a competition for best new mobile phone design.

-- Ring phone concept - 24-year old designer Tao Ma won first prize in the Sony Ericsson 2004 Phone Concept Design Competition in China for his Ring Phone Concept.

-- Let Your Fingers and Toes Do the Talking- A Ring Phone concept for mobile phones, part of Technojewelry which incorporates emerging electronics into everyday attire.

X-ray Photograph of a cell phone

Nick Veasey uses x-ray machines of various sizes to create stunning photography of everyday objects.

Ad Lab via The Telegraph.

A different-looking phone concept

A phone concept from New York based still life photographer Horacio Salinas. He works with Vogue, The New York Times, GQ amongst other to create fashion editorial or even illustrate articles.

[via Trend.Land]

Window Phone concept predicts the weather

Spotted on Yanko Design, The ‘Window Phone’ concept by Seunghan Song that makes accurate predictions and even changes its display to reflect the climatic conditions outdoors.

Universal Phone Concept for both blind and sighted people

The Universal Phone, by D Seunghan Song, is designed for both blind and sighted people. How does it work? Thousands of micro pins dynamically raise and lower forming a tactile surface for all to get touchy with. Sighted people get the elusive tactile.

[Yanko Design]

Fat burning concept phone

The Stix concept phone is designed by Cyrene Quiamco and helps burn off calories to keep you in shape. This innovative device will only charge up again if you jog, jump, shake, or perform any other exercise so your kinetic energy can keep it working.

The actual phone wraps around your wrist and comes with a pedometer and heart rate monitor to track your vitals and help you maintain a healthy lifestyle.

[via Trendhunter]

Take a cell phone Swig!

The “Cheers” cell phone concept is powered by an efficient, maybe even energy-saving Alcohol-cell. By Designer: Tryi Yeh.

[via Yanko Design]

The Power Of My Wrist

The Dyson Energy Bracelet - by designers: Mathieu Servais, Camille Lefer, Clément Faydi & Mickaël Denié - is a gadget that uses Seebeck effect (= the thermoelectric effect is the direct conversion of temperature differences to electric voltage and vice versa. ) to harness energy and power your mobile phones for a few precious minutes more, when you desperately need it.

[via Yanko Design]

Phone, Ear-Phone, Phone Concept

Spotted on Yanko Design, the Kambala, a mobile phone that transforms to an earphone. Simply pop the center piece and the earpiece clip pings out; clip this to your ear, and you got a phone-earphone.

By Designer: Ilshat Garipov.

Motorola celebrates 25 years of mobile phones with 12 concepts that look nothing like mobile phones

... Thirty one of Motorola's designers, from five different offices around the globe, have been dedicating a portion of their time since late last year to a project called "Motorola 2033."

The initiative, under the auspices of the Consumer Experience Design team (CXD), uses the 25th anniversary of the mobile phone as an opportunity to imagine mobile device design 25 years on, resulting in a curious set of research-based blue sky concepts rooted in some fantastical, yet plausible suppositions.

[via Core77]

Holographic Text Messages

Spotted on TrendHunting.

Holographic Text Messages will rock your world. With 1.5 million views in just a couple weeks, this viral video proves it. The video, by Inha Luke Yoo describes the concept as HoloText Messaging.

The kicker of course, is that this sort of technology isn’t yet available. But this concept video does a great job of showing you what holographic text messages will be like.

Ondo Concept Phone Twists and Bends to Edit Music

Spotted on Mobiledia, the Ondo, a new concept music phone that physically twists and bends to edit music on the go.

Glassy Glassy Mobile Phone Concept

Spotted on Ubergizmo via Likecool, The Glassy Glassy Mobile Phone Concept by Tokyo based designer Mac Funamizu.

Pretty.

Touch Screen Rotary Phone

Spotted on Yanko Design, a Touch Screen Rotary phone by Designer Mark Miller.

Illuminated Crystal Phones

Spotted on Trendhunter, the ‘Quartz Tele’ concept phone that turns phone dialling into a geological study.

Opposing the ultra-thin craze, the luminous ‘Quartz Tele’ extends its tentacle numerals towards your fingertips and lures you in for a phone call. The daring concept incorporates large quartz crystals for each number; pushing each crystal triggers the LED lights embedded beneath to give a more dramatic tone to making a phone call.

Coupled Cell Phones

Spotted on Trendhunter, a two is better than one cell phone concept.

Conduit cell phone concept

Spotted on DVICE, Conduit, a pan piper inspired cell phone design. By Tirshathah Hunter for Korean cell phone company SKY/Pantech.

Alcatel Lego Phone

Spotted on Slippery Brick, a Lego phone by Alcatel and Digital Blue.

Sculpted Phone No Different From Hosta Plant

The project we see here by Designer Anton Webb is a simple home phone taking inspiration from the Hosta Plant. For those with a serious lack of green-thumb-knowledge let me tell you that it’s a foliage plant that is not fussy and comes in a broad range of solid colors.

[via Yanko Design]

DYI pencil iPhone stand

Spotted on Trendhunter, a DIY iPhone stand made of pencils and rubber bands - by Geeky Gadgets. How cool is that?

Apple Keyboard Concept Holds iPod/iPhone

Spotted on Ubergizmo, an Apple keyboard concept which accommodates an iPhone.

iPhone Wedding Cake Makes Geek Happy

Spotted on Gizmodo, an iPhone wedding cake.

Links to other iPhone and cell phones cakes.

socket-deer recharges your cell phone

These electrical outlet covers let you put your mobile phone on the wall as it recharges. The antlers for all three types of deer are already the perfect shape to hold things.

Socket-deer can also be used as a cover for light switches, and the antlers make an excellent hook for keys or accessories.

[via Swiss Miss]

Fur and Rhinestone Phone

Spotted on The Red Ferret, The Emerson Pink Fur and Rhinestone Phone. I'm speechless.

The Natural Year Phone

Spotted on Yanko Design, The biodegradable Natural Year Concept Phone "made of hay, sans screen and soft keys".

By designer Je-Hyun Kim

Tactile iPhone case concept for the visually impaired

This Silicon Touch iPhone case is used with an app store application designed for the Blind and the Visually Impaired to allow special accessibility functions like text-to-speech features and a moon type tactile alphabet keyboard.

This simple silicon case, covers all the Apple iPhone device, and with the help of the engraved bas-relief icons, keyboard and multi-touch scrolls, it gives fully access to the interface beneath.

Designer: Bruno Fosi

[via Yanko Design]