Zinc Chan, a London-based designer, just struck fame with the speed of a back-tax owing Ohio plumber. The Icono concept telephone is inspired by the internationally recognized "call me" hand gesture made famous by pouty-mouthed debutantes and hollywood starlets -- aka "shaka" amongst surfers. As such, the microphone and speaker are split to ride the swell of the pinkie and thumb, respectively. Callers then draw a unique pattern on the touchscreen pre-assigned to their contacts to initiate a call. As far fetched as the concept may seem, work related to
induction charging,
body area networks for transmitting audio
across human skin,
round LCDs, and any number of
short length wireless solutions could very well make this concept a near-term reality. One more pic after the break.
Update: Oops, reader Michael just revealed a little uncredited
design inspiration from IDEO circa 2001. Now how does that expression go... something about great artists steal? [Via
Textually and
Core77]
Tags: cellphone, concept, icono, zinc chan, ZincChan