Future Nokia Phones Will Silence When You Glare at Them

Posted on March 3rd, 2010. Written by Rico.

For Nokia Showcase 2010, designer Younghee Jung talked shared some slides about coming up with gesture controls for Nokia phone users. At least one idea thrown around by the design team were outlandishly funny.

Owners of the N97, N97 mini, 5230, and similar Nokia phones know that silencing an incoming call only requires placing the phone face down on a table. That gesture was the result of some brainstorming by the people under Younghee; while coming up with ideas they weren’t limited by what’s possible with today’s hardware, as the following sketches show.

That’s right: if Nokia had powerful (and cheap) enough technology, we might have had phones that go quiet wen you glare at it. Younghee talked about the issues facing the design team while coming up with gestures, which cover factors such as convenience and ostentatiousness. It’s doubtful that phone users would be willing to circle a phone above their heads to activate their device’s GPS functionality.