KDDI, Japan’s second biggest mobile phone carrier, showcased a number of cell phone prototypes in their five-floor Design Studio [JP] in central Tokyo. The phones were designed by award-winning design wunderkind Hideo Kanbara [JP].
I went to the so-called Ply Exhibition [JP] (which ended yesterday), made some pictures but actually left mildly disappointed. The phones (featuring built-in projectors, game controllers and tissue dispensers) look quite cool on the web (click on “Exhibition” on this Flash site [JP]) but look rather unspectacular in reality. And of course, these are just concepts and not actual pieces of hardware.
Have a look at the concept pictures and compare them with the “live” pictures I made below.
Tissue dispensers! You gotta be kidding. The Japanese really have some strange ideas.
That projector phone sounds like a neat concept, but how often is it going to be used and for what? Watching movies or 1SEG TV. Well, a concept is a concept, so let them dream on.
Tissue dispenser? The flash says “Printer” apparently.
You don’t need put “Lets laugh at their quirk” vibe on every Japanese related article, isn’t it?
As a fellow Japanese, these misunderstanding led by those flippant articles are REALLY disgusting.
Even CrunchGear do this shit? You meant joking? It’s no fun.
@kisaragi:
KDDI also presents a phone concept with a tissue dispenser built-in: Please look at the 5th picture I took.
To be honest, I don’t understand your accusation (”Lets laugh at their quirk”) at all. This article is completely free of any irony or jokes, as are my other articles on Japan. Your comment (and cuss word) is therefore completely inappropriate (and the first I ever heard after 100s of articles I wrote on Japanese Tech and web stuff).
I agree making fun of Japan is not appropriate: That’s why I am not doing it!
Rest assured, CrunchGear has no intention to mock Japanese Tech (but rather to introduce it to a worldwide audience).