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‘ALO’, the next smartphone of the future has no screen and with holograms

Over the years we know a lot of impressive mobile concepts, which integrate technologies that we would like to see in the near future. However, many of them remain as projects and never see the light. There are a lot of eccentricities in the world of mobile telephony in concepts of smartphones that never get to see the light and that are tremendously strange at first sight. But after the recent Xiaomi Mi Mix has shown that the public is eager to meet electronic devices that skip the rules and surprise more by its design than by its high technical specifications. This may not be the fate of “ALO smartphone” designed by Frenchman Philippe Starck

Philippe Starck is currently one of the most important industrial designers of our times, his works have transcended due to its peculiar aspect that mixes aesthetics with functionality. His work is present in a large number of architectural projects and various types of objects. Perhaps for many of us it will be easier to identify him if we say that he was responsible for the design of the Mi Mix of Xiaomi.

Philippe Starck, the popular French designer returns to the charge with ‘Alo’, an old project 22 years ago to appear at the 1995 Berlin IFA technology fair when it came to light was discarded for being very advanced for its time.

However, over the years it offers a new possibility for this cell phone based on the display of holographic images and voice control, in a time where virtual assistants seem to have made enough progress. The device is fully managed by voice control, one of the trends of smartphones for 2017, especially since the birth of Google Assistant and the likely launch of a Samsung artificial intelligence.

Now Starck has joined Jerome Olivet, another famous French designer, to create a concept that shows us what the smartphone of the future should be like, a radical change that completely eliminates the touch screen interface, to take a step towards the use Of holograms.

The operation proposed by Starck and Olivet is a bit strange (but may be common in a few years): it is a phone that, in the absence of a screen, projects video, photos and messages in three dimensions, as they do in movies of Star Wars.

For obvious reasons, Alo still does not exist and is only in the prototype phase, but the Frenchman says he already works with several industrial designers and technical experts to bring his phone to reality.

Starck’s work on the Mi Mix has been deeply praised around the world, as it is the first smartphone with a screen covering 91% of the front surface of the device. However, Starck is against the growing ‘screen culture’, where everything is being taken to this type of formats, which according to him are impractical, in addition to leaving very few possibilities to play with the design and factors so.

ALO smartphone technology that far exceeds the present

The ALO smartphone is a resounding response to all this, since it would be a translucent device with an elongated design designed to fit naturally in the hand. Here there would be no screen or tactile surfaces, all the information would be deployed through holograms either on the same device or projected on some other surface.

We could see from videos, messages, read news, and any activity through 3D holographic images. For its operation we would be based exclusively on voice commands, where thanks to a virtual assistant we can access the functions provided by this smartphone. Almost like a UFO, ALO smartphone would vibrate and emit several patterns of lights to warn when a message notification has arrived or if you have received a call. Most impressive is that the building material is repaired automatically in case of damage.

Although currently only a prototype, the designers are working with the French electronics company Thomson, to develop a version of this equipment, to take advantage of current artificial intelligence.

The ALO smartphone camera would be one of the most important points, since it would behave “like the human eye”, being able to identify objects, places, situations, people, and even texts, in order to act accordingly, besides that it will also serve As a means of projection.

The heart of ALO smartphone would be made of a cast aluminum alloy, which would be covered by a flexible polymer housing that would have haptic response capabilities. The feedback would be by means of small vibrations or producing heat, here it will depend on what we are doing or the place where we are. In addition, the housing would have self-healing capabilities, which would cause the device to support maltreatment.

This unconventional idea about a smartphone is a work done for the French electronics company Thomson, where they try to lay the groundwork for a future that will be dominated by artificial intelligence and robotics. Although it is a concept, both designers are looking for a way to manufacture a prototype, which may not have all the functions they want, but at least they want to show how it would look physically.

Would a device like ALO smartphone really work?