As the V.P. of Emerging Technologies at Funambol, I always have an eye out on the future of Mobile Technology. In my previous post I talked about how 4G will affect your home Internet connection and in this first of two articles, I’m looking at a next generation phone, the Origami. While the Origami is a concept phone, something I thought up rather than something you can go to the store and buy or that is being built, there is nothing in the design that will stop innovative manufacturers from creating a similar phone by late 2011.
Looks like a Standard Android Phone?
At first glance, the Origami looks like a standard Android phone, but what are these things in the back on the phone?
It Opens up to Two Panels
Yes, you can open the panel that’s behind the Origami and now you have double the space to display your map. But wait, there’s still something in the back of the phone.
Opens up Again to Four Panels
Yep, you now see the phone in it’s full glory. All four panels open, no additional panels in the back.
And the View of the Back
Here’s the view of the phone from the back when it’s closed. Since we have both a camera and a display panel on the back, we can use it for video conferencing. No need to have an additional front facing camera.
How does it unfold?
This animation clip shows the details of the unfolding of the panels.
Specs
Screen:
- Single panel: 3.8 inch screen with a resolution of 480X800
- Double panel: 5.4 inch screen with a resolution of 960X800
- Quad panel: 7.7 inch screen with a resolution of 960X1600
Connectivity: 4G, 3G, Wifi Capacity: Up to 64GB via SD card
Camera: 8MP Carl Zeiss with Dual LED flash
Additional Details
In my next post, I’ll go through the process that I went through to come up with the Origami, and what I learned about3D modeling and some of the conceptual challenges I ran into .
All the 3D modeling was done by Kasun from The Design Crew who was patient with me, when I changed my mind a couple of times during the process or added details pretty late in the game.
I’m the VP of Emerging Technologies at 
what is the hinge mechanism and what keeps the screen “rigid” when you expand it? the problem is mechanical in such a configuration — the hinges will degrade over time and use and the screen will go floppy or the hinge will break because the user bends them too far the wrong way and since they contain wires for the signal, they have to be thick enough that it will never be possible for the folded device to be slim enough to fit in a pocket comfortably
I’m going to go into this in my next post, but in summary, this is the biggest challenge with the Origami. Obviously, this is a crude example, but look at http://www.nintendodsi.com/meet-dsi-xl.jsp for a consumer device that has hinges, that has been around for a while.
I’ll wait for your next post but the Nintendo DSi is certainly not a good hinged example for folks who want the device to look slick or be slim…