The shape-shifting future of the mobile phone - Fabian Hemmert

I am a PhD student, and that means I have a question: how can we make digital content grasp the ball?

Because you see, on the one hand, there is the digital world, and no question, many things are happening there right now. For us humans, it's not quite a material that's already there; it's virtual. On the other hand, we humans live in a physical world; it's rich, it tastes good, it feels good, it smells good. So the question is, how do we get the stuff over from the digital into the physical?

That's my question. If you look at the iPhone with its touch and there, with its body, the activity, you can see the tendency: it's getting physical. The question is, what's next?

Now, I have three options that I would like to show you. The first one is mass. As humans, we are sensitive to where an object in our hand is heavy, so could we use that in mobile phones? Let me show you the weight-shifting mobile. It is a mobile phone-shaped box that has an iron weight inside, which we can move around, and you can feel where it's heavy. We shift the gravitational center of it. For example, we can augment digital content with physical mass.

So you move around the content on the display, but you can also feel where it is just from the weight of the device. Another thing it's good for is navigation. It can guide you around in a city; it can tell you by its weight, "Okay, move right, walk ahead, make a left here." And the good thing about that is you don't have to look at the device all the time; you have your eyes free to see the city.

Now mass is the first thing. The second thing is shape. We're also sensitive to the shape of objects we have enhanced. So if I download an e-book and it has 20 pages, well, that could be thin, right? But it has 500 pages, and I want to feel that. Harry Potter is thick! So let me show you the shape-changing mobile again.

It's a mobile phone-shaped box, and this one can change its shape. We can play with the shape itself. For example, it can be thin in your pocket, which we, of course, want it to be. But then, if you hold it in your hand, it can lean towards you, be thick; it's like tapered to the downside to change the grasp. We can adjust to that.

It's also useful if you want to put it down on your nightstand to watch a movie or use this alarm clock; it stands. It's fairly simple. Another thing is sometimes we watch things on the mobile phone that are bigger than the phone itself. So in that case, like here, this map is bigger than the phone screen. The shape of the phone could tell you, "Okay, off the screen right here, there was more content. You can't see it, but it's there," and you can feel that because it's thicker at that edge.

Shape is the second thing. The third thing operates on a different level. As humans, we are social; we are empathic, and that's great! Wouldn't that be a way to make mobile phones more intuitive? Think of a hamster in the pocket; I can feel it's doing all right. I don't have to check it.

Let me show you the living mobile bat phone. Okay, so once again, a mobile phone-shaped box, but this one has a breath and a heartbeat. It feels very organic, and you can tell it's relaxed right now. Oh, now Mr. Cole has a new course, a new girlfriend maybe; very exciting! How do we calm it down? Hmm, you give it a patch behind the ears, and everything is all right again.

So that's very intuitive, and that's what we want. So what we have seen are three ways to make the digital grasp cover for us, and I think making it physical is a good way to do that. What's behind that is a postulation, namely that humans should get much more technical in the future, rather than that technology should be a bit more human.

[Applause]
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