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The Astonishing Tribe's interface design coming to Fujitsu's "radical" dual-screen phone

By Rain Noe - October 4, 2010

in Object Culture | Design Business

A couple of weeks ago we showed you a "Future of Screen Technology" video by TAT (The Astonishing Tribe), which seemed pie-in-the-sky amazing and almost too fantastic to be realized. But just today TAT has announced that Fujitsu Japan "will reveal a ground breaking dual screen mobile phone user interface powered by TAT's design and technology initiatives." There's no word on which of TAT's features will make the phone, although the announcement mentions that "going dual screen radically changes the user interaction and requires advanced design," while Fujistu Mobile Phone Group director Takeshi Ueno says "we are delighted that TAT's UI technology enables the type of new design paradigms to create advanced UI." We're dying to see what they come up with, but will have to wait until the test phone's unveiling (hopefully tomorrow!) at the CEATEC 2010 exhibit in Tokyo.

Click here for another look at TAT's demonstrative video.

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Kivi Carreg

14 years ago

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Pardon my cynical tone, but "a ground breaking dual screen mobile phone" made by Fujitsu sounds like just another gimmicky feature phone.

First, the design studio won't collaborate remotely closely enough with internal design and engineering teams - especially not UX designers, assuming Fujitsu even has any aboard - because of thickly-laid bureaucratic red tape. Next, the software engineers are going to neuter the design because they're engineers, they know better than designers, and what do designers know anyway? - they just sit around drawing stuff.

Then the software is going to get kneecapped by the hardware engineers with last-minute spec revisions. The hardware engineers, in turn, will have been forced to cut too many corners too late in the development process because of stingy budget cuts. Said budget cuts will made by marketing managers that are so caught up in the bottom line that they forget the very thing that bottom line stands on is the line of products the company sells.

Meanwhile, the industrial designers will be off doing their own thing, doodling up flashy portfolio pieces (which the company might occasionally put into a press release to proclaim how trendy and innovative it is) instead of reasonable, refined products that consumers would actually buy. It's not like they have much else to do, though, because the hardware and manufacturing teams are the ones ultimately responsible for the final product, and they happen to look down on the industrial design team. Why? Well, they're engineers, and they know better than those stupid designers, and what do designers know anyway? - they just sit around drawing stuff.

And in the end, the final product is going to be just yet another forgettable and shitty feature phone, the result of a ramshackle corporate machine held together by incompetent, hands-off managers and a stodgy, self-competing corporate culture.

That's how it's always happened. No reason to believe the blogosphere's latest darling concept is going to magically change anything.
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kmf

14 years ago

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As cool as their video is, it's still basically just a rehash of what MS did about a year earlier. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peSYlJlg14E
Or did TAT do that one as well?
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Tobias

14 years ago

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They are actually called "The Astonishing Tribe"
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Parker

14 years ago

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Their name is actually (TAT) The Astonishing Tribe, not "AMAZING". But yes they are amazing in some software they put out.
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