Pilotfish Ondo Modular, Bendable Musicphone Concept

What the world needs are more concept devices, and thankfully here come Pilotfish with their Ondo to fill that gap.  Best known for their work on the Synaptics Onyx interface, Pilotfish have now turned their attention to more media-centric mobile devices with the Ondo cellphone concept, a twistable, touch-sensitive and modular music experience. 

A candybar-format device, the Ondo has a three-segment touch-display using OLED panels; each of these can be removed and clipped onto a person or instrument as a standalone microphone.  Integrated storage means the segments can also be used to swap data with another Ondo owner, at least in Pilotfish's concept, and tracks edited on the device can be sent by MMS.

Ondo can be twisted and bent to modify the audio, similar to the whammy bar on a guitar, and there's a jog-dial for mixing.  Since there's an integrated network connection, Pilotfish envision Ondo owners collaborating remotely on music projects.

Of course, right now the Ondo is just a concept, albeit one that Pilotfish believe commercially possible in the "near future".  The three displays rely on OLED, while both flat-sheet power and storage is used; as for the flexible housing, that has integrated piezoelectrics to capture movement.  They're currently considering building working prototypes to better demonstrate the Ondo concept.

Press Release:

Pilotfish Launches Ondo Music Editing Phone Concept

Play it, mix it, rock out to it! Ondo enables a more flexible and physical

experience in mobile phones

MUNICH, Germany – April 20, 2009 — Pilotfish, a progressive industrial design

and product development studio based in Munich, Amsterdam and Taipei, today

introduced Ondo, a dedicated music editing phone concept. The Ondo concept

enables OEMs to visualize a new form of user interaction for mobile phones.

User

The target user for "Ondo" is the music enthusiast who seeks to interactively

capture and edit sounds. Going beyond software-based solutions of other

products, it is specifically designed to effectively collect pure sounds and is

specially constructed to create a tactile sound editing experience.

Music Editing

Made from form-sensitive flexible materials, "Ondo" allows the user to modify

recorded sounds by physically twisting and bending the device. Like a guitarist

pulling on a whammy bar, users can feel and hear the musical effects as they

create them.

Jamming

Another innovative feature of "Ondo" are the three removable display "sticks". In

their normal state, the "sticks" act as a unified touch display for the mobile

device. When removed, each can be separately clipped onto a musical instrument

or person to capture live sound. Like a portable recording studio, "Ondo" makes

mixing tracks easy, because each "stick" picks up isolated sounds from each

individual instrument. The recordings can be immediately sent via MMS(Multimedia Messaging) around the globe allowing musicians at different

geographical locations to jam together.

Mixing

In party mode, "Ondo" works as a digital mixer enabling the user to create

seamless transitions between songs. This is made easy with interactive touch

functions combined with integrated software support.

Market Opportunities

The advantage of such a device is that a range of services and accessories can

accompany it in order to enhance the sound capturing and editing experience.

From a business perspective, most of the players in the mobile world can benefit:

for example, content creators – by providing sound libraries or musical games

for download; operators – by facilitating increased user interaction; and device

manufacturers – by producing accessories such as input devices, Bluetooth

instruments, etc.

For more information on the Ondo concept, visit www.ondo-phone.eu

For more information on Pilotfish, visit www.pilotfish.eu.