Nokia showed off some pretty cool 3G concepts ten years ago, and is now back with nanotech/LTE concepts. Will we ever see these devices with a Nokia brand?
The first story we posted here at infoSync World eight years ago, showed off 3G phone concepts by Nokia. The sleek and ergonomically shaped devices were supposed to come with a user-friendly interface, that could have been controlled by gentle finger-touches.
Clearly something went totally wrong on the road into the 3G age, as the device below looks more like an iPhone, or what? So why should we believe that today's press release coming out of the Finnish headquarter presents anything but concepts that will never see the light of day, at least not with a Nokia brand?
 Nokia's 3G vision ten years ago...
Well, there's always the idea of learning from mistakes. More importantly however, about a year ago, Nokia teamed up with the University of Cambridge in the UK to accelerate the development of key technologies required to turn a cool press mockup into a real-world device. One of the first public viewings of the collaboration's results so far, can now be seen at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.
The concept on display, called Morph, aims to demonstrate how future mobile devices might be stretchable and flexible, allowing the users to transform their mobile device into radically different shapes. It simply demonstrates functionality that nanotechnology might be capable of delivering in a few years: flexible materials, transparent electronics and self-cleaning surfaces. The latter of which will obviously become a ubiquitous feature in fashion phones in the future, regardless of shapes.
Around the time Verizon Wireless' and Vodafone's global LTE network is expected to reach a critical mass, in 2015, elements of Morph might be available to integrate into handheld devices, though initially only at the high-end. However, nanotechnology may one day lead to low cost manufacturing solutions, and offers the possibility of integrating complex functionality at a low price, according to Nokia.
It remains to be seen whether Nokia will actually accomplish with LTE devices what they had envisioned to do with 3G devices, namely revolutionize the mobile industry. Luckily for Nokia, there's no 3G iPhone on the market yet, but we suspect one will appear soon enough for Apple to deservedly get credited for the first revolution at least. In the meantime, check out how the future of nanotech enabled mobile devices on LTE networks may look like below.
...Nokia's LTE vision combined with nanotech
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