Gearfuse

Personally, putting new shells on consoles was never my thing. I never understood why someone would risk taking apart their shiny new PlayStation or Sega Dreamcast so that they could wrap it up in a clear, translucent layer of plastic. But such is life, as well as this Nintendo DSi case. Created by accessories manufacturer XCM, the shell lets you peer into the inner workings of the console. It also looks like it’ll add bigger, comfier buttons for extended playtime. No word on price yet but it can’t be more than thirty bucks.

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Here’s a little known fact that most people have no clue about: Back in the day, when Apple was working on a new computer model, the prototypes before mass production would feature clear, translucent casing. Don’t believe me? Fire up that DVD player and go watch Hackers. Angelina Jolie uses a clear-plastic Powerbook in the movie. And this Mac SE/30? No exception. It’s a beautiful-looking pre-production model that any collector would love to own.

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Concept designs are what make us all wish that the artists would keep to themselves until the products were ready to be launched. This is exactly the case with the concept phone for KDDI by Nao Tamura. With a completely transparent shell, this phone lets you see innards, all of ‘em. In addition, because the hardware is completely silver, the phone looks inherintly cold and icy. Can’t you just see Tom Cruise in Minority Report 2 grabbing his “ice phone” to call the FBI (or whatever it’s called in the movie) to report a thought crime? So moving away from strict design, that screen is huge for a phone that size! Just from this perspective, it looks to be about half of the length. So while this phone is amazing and beutiful, it is also unavailable and just a thought in someone’s head. — Nik Gomez

au kddi design project [via UberPhones]