Nokia’s new 3220 is a nice enough tri-band phone, with integrated VGA camera and all the standard stuff, but besides looking like the bottom of a shoe, it’s most known for its optional Xpress-on funshell which adds ‘airtexting’ using a persistence of vision LED array (as seen in Phillip Torrone’s POV shoes or any number of Burning Man art projects). By waving the phone back and forth through the air, users can display short messages that appear to be much larger than the phone itself and look something like those LED signs that tell you how long you have to wait in queue at the DMV. It’s a fun concept, but somewhat hard to explain to those that haven’t seen it, and it brings up some interesting concepts when it comes to heckling. With the ability to quickly generate an LED sign with an message on it, will airtexting be the next thing that causes cellphones to be banned from public places?
Read [Nokia]
