Mobile phone as a windchime:
The Autumn’s new Sony Ericsson phone will offer differently-pulsed/coloured LEDs that will fire differently for different callers. A gentle pink strobe for ‘my lover’, an angry red flash for ‘my boss’; you get the idea. It might even open up a new market, comparable with ringtones, as people buy a new mini light-show every few weeks. Wouldn’t it be interesting, though, if mobiles could sample & respond to their ambient environment? For instance; the way that sunlight/air/sound plays over the rim LEDs during travel or in a cafe. Information on one of those (or all three) could be gathered by tiny sensors alongside/inside the LEDs, and translated in real-time into generative ambient polyphonic music. Or you could clip it into a little model-car ‘chassis’ and then set it down in a ‘phone playpen’, where it would slowly roam around while ‘nibbling’ at the LED displays of other phones.