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Mozilla cooks up one sweet phone concept

By | September 23, 2010, 5:42pm PDT

Add a crowd, a bunch of ideas, a few Mozilla concept wranglers and a few mockups and what do you get? One sweet fictional smartphone.

Mozilla’s Concept Series is a fine example of crowdsourcing. Working off of a bunch of concepts, designer Billy May cooked up the Seabird.

Gallery: Mozilla Seabird - smart phone that may never fly

The Seabird is designed to eradicate a few “frustrating physical interactions” by tossing in motion capture and projected keyboards. With this projector, the Seabird could function as a netbook.

Now this phone may never be produced, but it’s a bit of a dream machine.

Here are a few pictures and an explainer video.

Roll the video.

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Topics

Phone, Mozilla Corp., Seabird, Projectors, Telecom & Utilities, Netbooks, Nettops & MIDs, Keyboards, Hardware, Components, Peripherals, Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic.

Disclosure

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan has nothing to disclose. He doesn’t hold investments in the technology companies he covers.

Biography

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic. He was most recently Executive Editor of News and Blogs at ZDNet. Prior to that he was executive news editor at eWeek and news editor at Baseline. He also served as the East Coast news editor and finance editor at CNET News.com. Larry has covered the technology and financial services industry since 1995, publishing articles in WallStreetWeek.com, Inter@ctive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning magazine. He's a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and the University of Delaware.

For daily updates, follow Larry on Twitter.

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Dough mixer
dough rounder 10th Jan
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0 Votes
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RE: Mozilla cooks up one sweet phone concept
Wodenhelm 23rd Sep 2010
Well isnt that nifty grin I've always liked the idea of a projection keyboard, for ultra-portable devices (I've seen them laser ones from a few years back).

I'm sure one day it'll be that way for displays too, until eventually PC and Smartphone merge together into just a simple flat panel that you carry around.
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Yeah, but they never worked
Cylon Centurion 23rd Sep 2010
@Wodenhelm

We had 3 of them in school, and no one could get the dang things to connect with a computer running XP, Vista, or 7.
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RE: Mozilla cooks up one sweet phone concept
AttackComputerWhiz 23rd Sep 2010
Honestly? I'd buy it. I carry so much crap around to access different things that this would be a nice break. Battery life and OS would be the deal makers.
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Oh, and BTW...
AttackComputerWhiz 23rd Sep 2010
I have a new band on my "like" list. The Submarines are awesome!
0 Votes
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They are Great!!!
i2fun@... 24th Sep 2010
@AttackComputerWhiz But unfortunately CrApple iFanatics always SPAM FLAG anything that isn't related to honoring their GOD. NOW.... if you'd just have said "I have a new band on my iTunes "like" list. The Submarines are awesome!". Then you would have been Ok. Yep.... word put in in relating to CrApple and your comment would have been saved from their Corporate Anti-CrApple Hate sensors! wink
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Mozilla Corp is slowly becoming a dinosaur
nomorebs 23rd Sep 2010
Declining Marketshare, main source of revenue (Google) developing their own browser, no killer browser for Mobile phones (I know they are working on one). Sorry Mozilla, you will become extinct unless you stop wasting your time on "Labs" and deliver the goods.
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RE: Mozilla cooks up one sweet phone concept
CobraA1 24th Sep 2010
@nomorebs Google's browser is nice, but not "killing" Mozilla by any means. In fact, the next version of Firefox looks very promising and brings many of Chrome's features in while adding some interesting new features.
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RE: Mozilla cooks up one sweet phone concept
evilkillerwhale@... 24th Sep 2010
@CobraA1
Mozilla has been losing market to Chrome AND IE for nearly a while now. IE8 was solid, but slow. IE9 is faster than FF, and faster than Chrome for many tasks.

FF has to step it up or die.
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RE: Mozilla cooks up one sweet phone concept
Mike (not Cox) 24th Sep 2010
@nomorebs I'm keeping an eye on Chrome, but it still falls short of Firefox, except for speed in the currently "shipping" versions.
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RE: Mozilla cooks up one sweet phone concept
Traxxion 24th Sep 2010
@Mike (not Cox)
Yeah, the speed is sort of a biggie. Firefox is slooooow
0 Votes
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Ok guys back to improving your browser.
dave95. 23rd Sep 2010
Unfortunately all that goodness will be killed by our current state of battery technology.
0 Votes
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The dead-end of touch
tonymcs@... 23rd Sep 2010
Seems we only need glasses with a head-up display and a projected virtual keyboard and we could say goodbye to all the current phones and iToys.
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Too bad Apple can't innovate this way
NonZealot 23rd Sep 2010
Oh, wait, Apple did invent the grid of icons!
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Cool concept ..... we will never see it
wackoae 23rd Sep 2010
This is a cool concept ... but it is way beyond reality (today).

- Not sure a BT headset that doubles as a mouse is something users would like to use. After all, do you really want to play we people's ear wax??
- The "holo" keyboard looks nice .... but I haven't seen (or heard about) a single working prototype. Looks good in CGI, doubt it can be done with today's tech. Also by projecting a keyboard, it is very likely that it will eat up the battery in minutes.
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RE: Mozilla cooks up one sweet phone concept
CobraA1 24th Sep 2010
Projection stuff sounds great in concept, but I imagine would drain batteries pretty quickly, and not everybody is fond of virtual keyboards. If it also works with a bluetooth keyboard, and some models also come with a built-in physical keyboard, that would be great.

. . . although I find it a bit of waste of brainpower to come up with a concept but never even try to materialize it.
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RE: Mozilla cooks up one sweet phone concept
evilkillerwhale@... Updated - 24th Sep 2010
@CobraA1

Current gen laser keyboards are like 2 hours of constant use. This could potentially be improved upon, and better batteries could be added.
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RE: Mozilla cooks up one sweet phone concept
rhonin 24th Sep 2010
Where can I get one?
Sign me up!

Make the projector work only in dock mode.
For the projected keyboard I would find a way to work around the battery life - like a :replaceable battery
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RE: Mozilla cooks up one sweet phone concept
paul@... 24th Sep 2010
OK - so there are loads of reasons why it might not work, but it is one swet concept. We have to remember that nothing is achieved by thinking of reasons why something won't work, but by imagining what could work.
I would love to see a Mozilla phone even if it only has some of what is offered here.
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I want the anti-grav feature.
Bruizer 24th Sep 2010
That part looks simply amazing.
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UNREALISTIC: pointer will get lost, too much flat space needed for keyboard
DeRSSS 24th Sep 2010
The subject.
0 Votes
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RE: Mozilla cooks up one sweet phone concept
evilkillerwhale@... 24th Sep 2010
@denisrs
Correct me if I'm mistaken, but it didn't say that was the ONLY way to interface with the thing. It would be open sourced, since it's Mozilla, and so basically ANY bluetooth keyboard would work.
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RE: Mozilla cooks up one sweet phone concept
ddferrari 24th Sep 2010
Bad name, awesome concept! If this thing ever becomes reality (and all the issues are worked out), sign me up!
0 Votes
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Do you have a spam issue on this blog; I also am a blogger, and I was curious about your situation; many of us have created some nice procedures and we are looking to exchange solutions with others, why not shoot me an e-mail if interested.
Please let me know if you're looking for a article writer for your site.http://www.chinacateringequipment.com

http://www.marklinecatering.com/

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