Lifebook

Trade in all that tech cluttering
your desk, filling your pockets,
spilling out of your bag in an
unseemly scramble of silicon,
because Fujitsu's new concept
gives your gadgetry a group hug
in the form of a four-in-one
mega-laptop-tablet-camera-
phone-zord.
This latest Fujitsu Lifebook design
slots all four devices together
into one powerful planet-
defending piece of mega-tech, a
bit like Voltron. The idea is that
together they become greater
than the sum of their parts, by
integrating the technology. And of
course, all four devices would be
able to function separately.
The Yanko Design website, where
the concept features, airs the
principle of 'shared hardware',
which is behind the design. The
thinking is that too much of your
kit's potential is wasted. Because
we use separate devices, we
double-up on data -- such as our
music libraries on our phone,
tablet or laptop -- processor
power, memory or functions like
webcams.
"If I have a processor sitting in
my tablet, why can it not also
run/assist my laptop?" the site
asks. "If I have a fully functional
camera with its own memory and
image-processing power, why do I
need to have it repeated in my
laptop?"
Judging by the pics, the tablet
would slide into a 16-pin
connector in the base of the
laptop to act as a touch-screen
keyboard. There's a space for the
digital camera in the laptop lid.
And the phone integrates neatly
by slipping into the base. One
benefit is that it offers unified
charging, and another is you can
get rid of that tangle of wires you
carry around everywhere.
The Crazy Engineers website says
it's due for launch in 2013.
Fujitsu has yet to confirm
whether this incarnation of the
Lifebook will walk the Earth or if
it's an apparition dreamt up by
an eager designer , so check the
bottom of this story for updates.
In the meantime, the Asus
Padfone is another split
personality device expected to be
officially launched in February at
Mobile World Congress in
Barcelona. The Padfone is a sweet
4.3-inch slab of Ice Cream
Sandwich-fuelled smart phone
that slots into a tablet dock.
All this follows in the footsteps of
last year's likeable Motorola Atrix
-- a mobile that can be slid into
its own netbook dock, powering it
from the handset's processor.
That in turn may have taken its
inspiration from the Modu phone ,
a tiny handset that slid into
various 'jackets', all with different
features.