Fujitsu phone and PC concepts unveiled in Milan

The Good Design Award 50 Years exhibition is currently on display at La Triennale di Milano (Milan, Italy) to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Japan's foremost design awards, the Good Design Awards (also called the G-Mark system). One of the highlights of the exhibition which features 20 of Japan’s best known industrial design brand names, is a display of concept phones and computers from Fujitsu. It’s strange that we should be given such an insight into the direction of a Japanese computer company through a design exhibition in Milan, but the thrust of the message is that Fujitsu is clearly focussing on clever design to offer smaller yet fully functional devices. Two “slider” mobile phones are on display, one which incorporates a complete keyboard and large web interface screen and the other, known as a Multi Slider, offers differing functionality depending on the direction of the slide. There’s also an ultramobile PC with a clever fold-up keyboard and a beautiful flexible PC which can be set up as a tablet computer, a laptop, or a desktop computer.

The four concepts on show by Fujitsu in Milan are:

SLIDER, cellular telephone Slider incorporates a complete keyboard and large web interface screen into a cellular telephone.

MULTI SLIDER, cellular telephone Multi Slider offers a new interface where the functions are selected depending on the direction of the slide. One-hand operation with 4 basic functions that are intuitive to select and use.

ULTRA MOBILE, pocket computer Ultra Mobile puts a full-sized keyboard into your pocket in this fully functional PC that will accompany you wherever you go.

FLEXIBLE USE PC, personal computer As the name suggests, the Flexible Use PC has a flexible body, a keyboard, and a monitor. Using it as a wireless Ethernet, it can be set up as a tablet computer, a laptop, or a desktop computer.

Since 1957, the Good Design Awards have been awarded by the Japan Industrial Design Promotion Organization and have continued to motivate consumers and industry to strive for a society with a better everyday quality of life, a rich society traced out for Japan by the excellent examples of design on display. As a result, nearly 30,000 good designs have been publicly recognized so far, and the G-Mark is familiar to 90% of Japanese.