Forget touchscreens, this smartphone concept wants to use holograms
Your future smartphone could be entirely voice activated, displaying your text messages and other info with holograms. At least, that's the idea behind Alo, a new smartphone concept that imagines a touchscreen-less smartphone.
Created by French designer Jerome Olivet with art direction from acclaimed designer Philippe Starck, Alo ditches the typical smartphone display. Instead, the voice-activated phone will project holograms from its camera that show your text messages or let you watch videos, according to Dezeen's interview with Oliviet.
While the core of the device is molded aluminum alloy, the outer shell is a "gelatinous, supple and natural envelope that perfectly fits your hand," Olivet writes on his website. I am not really sure what that means (I've reached out to Olivet for more information) but Deezan reports the surface will also vibrate and give off heat as another means of interaction.
Though Olivet promises Alo will fit "perfectly" in your hand, the concept images look slippery as hell and not ideal for those prone to dropping their phones. But the designers have apparently thought of this too as the as-of-yet-unknown magic outside material also "repairs automatically as soon as it is damaged."
Alo will also come with an AI assistant (not to be confused with Google's AI-centric messaging app, Allo, which comes with Google Assistant) that will respond to voice commands and learn each user's speech patterns as it "becomes your privileged personal assistant," Olivet says.
Alo is just a concept for now but the designers, who developed the futuristic concept for French electronics company Thomson, do apparently have a plan to at least make some sort of prototype, though it seems unlikely we'd see an actual version of it any time soon.
Karissa was Mashable's Senior Tech Reporter, and is based in San Francisco. She covers social media platforms, Silicon Valley, and the many ways technology is changing our lives. Her work has also appeared in Wired, Macworld, Popular Mechanics, and The Wirecutter. In her free time, she enjoys snowboarding and watching too many cat videos on Instagram. Follow her on Twitter @karissabe.
