iPhone 5 release details "leaked"

Foxconn employee spills beans on summer launch

An employee for Foxconn in China has reportedly stated production of a device dubbed the iPhone 5 is about to go into production.

The source also revealed to 9to5Mac there are several sample handsets doing the rounds, but all differ slightly from each other. It is not clear which, if any, is the final device.

Some similarities between all the samples have been noted, including a screen which is 4-inches (or larger) in size, a different form-factor – hinting that Apple is going to move away from the 4/4S design and the devices are longer and wider than previous iPhones.

Back to the old routine

Last year we didn't see the iPhone 4S start production until late spring, which led to a later than expected launch in the autumn. With fresh reports of production to start soon on the iPhone 5, it looks like Apple could be returning to its old routine of a summer launch at WWDC.

Of course none of this is set in stone; however the same employee correctly reported that we wouldn't see the iPhone 5 last year, but instead see the iPhone 4S.

Are you happy that the iPhone 5 could be packing a bigger screen, keeping it in line with offerings from Samsung, HTC and the rest, or is the rumoured increase in handset size to accommodate it a real turn off?

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Envisioning Your Future in 2020

At the end of last year, Forbes magazine asked frog to help them envision the future in 2020. In December, we held a workshop in San Francisco that brought designers, futurists and journalists together to think about the current state of computing, how we might experience it 10 years from now and, perhaps most importantly, how we might make the transition into these possible futures.

The day-long event led to an extensive online feature: “Your Life in 2020,” a collection of illustrated concepts and videos that envision the future of ubiquitous computing. In that future,  your computer is not only incorporated into every aspect of your life but is a part of you. With this in mind, we imagined how future technology would influence the key areas of Social, Travel, Commerce, Healthcare, and Media. Here's what we came up with.

Our Second Brain or "ThingBook"
In the future nearly every visible thing will be cataloged and indexed, ready to be instantly identified and described to us. Want to go shopping? In the future we won't need big retail stores with aisles of objects on display. We'll be able to shop out in the world (see image, above). Do you like that new car you saw drive by? Or those cool shoes on the woman sitting across the room? All you’ll have to do is look at it and your mobile handset or AR-equipped eyeglasses will identify the object and look up the best price and retailer.

Bodynet 
Like Google for our bodies, future technologies will allow us to monitor our body's vital conditions and compute the outcome of our actions on-the-fly. So you'll know right away what it's going to take to work off that Burger and Coke.

Whuffie Meter
Curious about the future of social networking? Whuffie is a conceptual social Metric based on what others think of you. In the future this Metric might actually be usable as real money. Why not? Celebrities are used to getting things for free based on their popularity. This is the same idea taken to its democratic extreme. Socializing will take on completely new dimensions when we can see everything public about a person right as we are talking with them. Think dating is difficult today? Imagine the hoops we'll have to jump through when everyone in the bar can see your complete dating history the minute you walk into the room.

The term “whuffie,” by the way, is a word coined by author Cory Doctorow in his book Down And Out In the Magic Kingdom. It refers to the measurement of respect or karma a person gains or looses in their lives. In Doctorow’s future, humans have implants in their brains that visually project their whuffie, which has replaced money as currency.

Source: http://designmind.frogdesign.com/blog/envisioning-your-future-in-2020.html

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