Take a look at this

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHpgd8OsGtA

First off my battered Ford Focus would be replaced with a Lamborghini or two. Of course I couldn’t drive my new Lamborghini and use a common Nokia 5800 or a E71, so I would need something  reassuringly expensive, something with class, gold and diamonds. Fortunately there  are a couple of companies out there that will help separate me from my new found wealth.

Vertu is a standalone company owned by Nokia that sells luxury and reassuringly expensive mobiles. All the mobiles in Vertu’s range are hand built which is a nice touch. Then again when you are paying around $75k for a phone you’d expect that.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=05Za5af6WjI

Goldvish is another luxury  phone maker eager to separate the rich with anything between $20k -- $1,000,000, so if you have cash burning a hole in your pocket then they have the phone for you.  (ugly though)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXAPAO1JzGI

If you’re a banker wanting to part with your hard earned bonus (lasts years bonus obviously) and you want that little bit extra class, why not invest $2.5 million in a diamond encrusted iPhone

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NluyMM7t4w8

I used to work with a guy who measured his bonus in terms of the number of Big Mac’s he could buy over a year.  It became know in the company as the Big Mac index and all bonuses and pay rises were measured on that scale.

On the off chance I win the lottery this weekend, any thoughts on which of these super models I should invest in?

These are some cool concept phones that may or may not appear on the market.

Clearly a lot of these require a leap in technology, but it’s interesting to see what is going through designers minds.

Laurent Le Pen has collected 350 concept designs and put them into a slide show for your enjoyment.

Much like a concept car that is never released, many of these devices will probably never see the light of day either. But what’s interesting is what aspects of the designs we will see incorporated in future devices.

Nokia have launched a beta of their point and find service for UK and US users.
Using the phones camera you can point at barcodes and it if identifies a match you’ll get related information such as the best price.
It also recognises move posters and will suggest where you can see the movie or give you the option to watch trailers.

I went out for a walk trying to find a movie poster, who would have though that you could walk around central London and not see one movie advertised? I tried IMDB and looked at the movie The Waitress (it was the first poster I found -- honest), Point and Find gave me options for The Wrestler (close enough). Viewing the poster on a monitor is probably not a fair test.

The application ssupports a number of devices: N82, N95, N95 8GB, N76, N81, N81 8GB, E51, E66, 6290, 6124 Classic, 6161 Classic, 6120 Classic, 6110 Navigator and 5700 XpressMusic, and can be installed from the pointandfind site:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezct1VoRwUQ

From the last few posts you’ll see that I’m an avid fan of augmented reality technology and I have desperately been searching for a demo that I can install. I finally found one that covers a good number of Nokia devices so you can install and earn yourself some office geek points.

The Virtual Fanta Crew demo works on the following devices:

Nokia N82, Nokia N95, Nokia N95-3NAM, Nokia N95-8GB, Nokia 6120 Classic, Nokia 6121 Classic, Nokia N81, Nokia N81 8GB, Nokia 6124 Classic, Nokia 6110 Navigator, Nokia 6210 Navigator, Nokia N79, Nokia N85, Nokia N92, Nokia N93, Nokia N93i, Nokia N71, Nokia N75, Nokia N76, Nokia N77

It’s a pretty simple demo that just displays a 3D character , visit m.fanta.eu on your phone, print the marker, load the app and view the marker.

Fanta 3D Tennis works on the following devices:

Nokia N82, Nokia N95, Nokia N95-3NAM, Nokia N95-8GB, Nokia 6120 Classic, Nokia 6121 Classic, Nokia N81, Nokia N81 8GB

3D Tennis is a bit more involved than just displaying a character so you’ll get more of a wow factor. Same deal to install, visit m.fanta.eu from your phone and print the marker.

Both markers can be found here

Augmented reality is going to change the world for sure, especially when you see cool videos like this one.

(cheers to Paul Golding for tweeting his blog post)

Augmented Guru?
If you are involved in augmented reality technology, particularly for smartphones can you get in contact with me. I want to make a feature of the technology at this years Smartphone Show in London (October). I own the developer piece and I’m looking to brainstorm ideas on how we can get you involved. Reach me at: lester ‘@’ lestermadden ‘dot’ com

There is a pretty cool overview video of augmented reality here:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnDZsXK1X9Y

I’m not sure how that will go down with your fellow travellers in economy if you project your movie onto the back of their head, and I must admit that struggling for valid usecases on why I would want this, but came up with the following:

• showing friends my pictures collection
• showing a presentation
• watching a movie with friends
• having a video conference

This is no flash in pan technology, there are a whole bunch of phone manufactures producing phones that have projector technology built in. Samsung, Sharp, TI to name a few. Not only that but Samsung have a working prototype that is due to ship in 2009.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgnADSuF8MA

The Samsung MBP200 with built in projector is due to ship later this year.

How would you use a projector in your phone?

Having an accelerometer in a phone is cool, but what’s better is when you let a couple of really bright people loose on the API. Especially if they happen to have a spare robot or blimp around the house.

I think over the last few days we have been there, done that with all things accelerometer, I think we have covered every platform now. But what I like about the robot demo is the integration with the camera.  I’m just thinking how great it would be to phone home and take control over a security robot that patrols the house. Imagine being able to steer it around from room to room and see a live video feed so you can check the doors, make sure the lights are turned off, stroke the cat.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxn8gNZhe7E

And who hasn’t dreamed of flying a remote control helicopter with a camera around the garden, over the house and spying on your neighbours?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz6X4BJ1ZFw

Both these demos are on the Google Android G1 phone using an open source project called SRV1 Consol. Cheers to Nitin for sending these to me. I’m hoping that we’ll see some more cool accelerometer projects, hopefully based on Symbian in the future. Until then I think we’ve done planes, trains and automobiles with the accelerometer, unless someone has footage of a 747 being flown using an iPod lets move on.

Narwhals
Moving completely away from anything related to accelerometers. Being a Futurama fan I always assumed that Narwhals were made up animals. Perhaps if I spent more time watching NatGeo and not Futurama I would have known they were real. Remember the annoying yet addictive Hamster song?  Well Futurama fans its time to rejoice.

Just don’t blame me when you are laying in bed tonight singing about Narwhals.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykwqXuMPsoc

My knowledge of Narwhals had been greatly extended. I now know they:

• cause a commotion
• swim in the ocean
• beat polar bears in a fight
• should never touch your balls

Who needs NatGeo?

The guys over at Vodafone have developed something similar for the Blackberry Storm. Even Lewis Hamilton gets to have a play.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiLoANg6nNY

The Symbian version of ShakerRacer (so named because it uses the accelerometer) was developed by a university in the Symbian Acadmey program and was a core part of the Smartphone Show last year. Our version used a 4x4 truck rather than a F1 car.

I need to send Nitin Samani, our Academy guy who is responsible for the Academy program out with a video camera to make a video. Nitin can you do a video please in the style of the Canyonero video from the Simpsons.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCzCXyQ-bv0

Hyundai have announced they also plan to launch a watch phone similar to the LG watch phone I blogged about earlier. The LG phone is reportedly set for a launch price of £1000 when it appears in the UK. – ouch. Hyundai are expecting to sell for around £200, SIM free and with a Bluetooth headset.

Features include:

• SMS
• touch screen control
• email
• MMS
• Bluetooth
• video playback
• music player
• 128MB storage
• 70 hours stand by
• 3 hours talk time

It will be interesting to see some UI usage on how this works.

More here.

What about taking a photo of a bus stop and having the time table for the local buses delivered to your phone, perhaps along with a map that shows the location of the buses and nearby taxis so you can decide your best travel option? Do you think that too far fetched? Well perhaps it not as far away as you might think.

Microsoft Research is working on augmented reality technology to enable you to point a camera at every day scenes in the world and get back information based on those scenes automatically that could make these types of scenarios common place in the future.

The video below is pretty interesting and a good look at what may be possible with the technology in the future.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBEXxW3qAMg

I’m not over sold on the bubbles game idea, but I am a pretty poor navigator, even when I have Google/Nokia Maps and I try to get from A to B, chances are I’ll set off in the wrong direction while I orientate myself and have to double back. The obvious potential for me is having this technology in LBS software to make navigation easier. Imagine the bubbles being replaced with an arrow that guides you into your location, or uses your friend’s location placing arrows above them so you can easily spot them in a crowd.