Mobile processors are quickly approaching speeds that allow phones to act more and more like truly pocketable computers, but one of the areas that still needs to be addressed is how to facilitate text input and visual output that rivals traditional notebooks.
Mozilla’s concept "Seabird" phone presents a few interesting ideas. For starters, the Android-based handset would have two pico projectors built into either side of the phone. When placed on a flat surface, each projector would present half of a touch-based laser QWERTY keyboard.
When placed in a specially-angled dock, one of the projectors could be used to toss the phone’s screen up on a wall while the other provided a full laser QWERTY keyboard and touchpad to the user.
The other cool feature would be a Bluetooth headset built into the phone itself that, when popped out, could double as a mouse. It’d feature a clickable button and would work in mid-air to navigate the phone’s interface.
Check out the video below for a look at the concept phone in action:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG3tLxEQEdg]
Cool, no? Perhaps the coolest part is that all this technology is pretty much available now. If it was all stuffed in a current-day phone, the price tag would be prohibitively high for most people, the handset would be much thicker, and battery life would likely be unusably low, but this Seabird concept is probably a pretty good look at where things are headed in the next few years.
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