LONDON, England – Get up close to it and it’s patently obvious the new 8800 Carbon Arte is a bit of an engineering marvel. If you’ve ever spent time with Carbon Fibre, you’ll be familiar with its weave, and typical lack of consistency. Now, try get that down to phone proportions, and make it look right at the same time. No easy task, as senior design manager at Nokia, Daniel Gratiot explained when we met him.
ESPOO, Finland – Over the past year I’ve become hooked on the notion that we’re bang in the middle of a full-blown mobile behavior revolution. Tangible elements such as high speed data connections, GPS and on-the-move social networking are heralding the change, with services such as those highlighted by the 2008 Forum Nokia Innovation Series program affecting the shift in how we interact with our devices. So this morning, on witnessing the birth of the new Nokia 8800 Carbon Arte, my first reaction (after rolling my tongue back up off the floor), was that this isn’t just a performance piece of luxury mobile hardware. More interesting, to me at least, are how the elements that make up this device – the materials, it’s interface (and in some cases lack of it), and hidden talents – echo the mobile behavioral changes I allude to, but in terms of the physical.
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