When you get to the point where you’ve fucked with the Earth so much that normal plants just won’t cut it, you need alternatives. That’s why the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Mitsubishi and Tokki Corp. have developed a prototype solar cell module that resembles a living plant. With organic thin-film solar cells, the module is protected by a very thin film which improves the durability of the module, as well as prevents the entry of water and oxygen. In the future, you may see these organic solar cells incorporated into other elements of design such as architectural materials, clothing materials, living ware and toys.

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Chinese phone companies are amazing, after ripping off Porsche they’re going after Microsoft today… but this time it really deserves some attention. First off it houses a 3″ QVGA touch screen in a 17mm thin body, booo Nokia. Secondly it has stereo speakers, booo SonyEricsson; but seriously we’re starting to feel sorry for Microsoft, their Vista sold only 244 copies and their UI was ripped off by Meizu, now we have this “Window” phone…

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SonyEricsson is preparing an announcement in May; supposedly at least 2 handsets would be introduced, the Shinobu (above, left) and Nicole (above, right). These devices (and the W580i) would use a modified UI with a reorganization of keys, namely the addition of dial-hang up buttons. We enlarged the original pictures so that you can see the SonyEricsson watermark too, please excuse the pixelation. The 5 megapixels prototype we showed you might not be introduced just yet The messaging device(s) that we also reported might be released in the form of their variants, or at a later date.

Shinobu should be a 12.5mm thick HSDPA slider with a large 2.4″ QVGA screen and a 2megaixels fixed focus camera, it should be retailed at about €430 ($550).

Nicole should be a 13mm thick WCDMA candybar with a 2.1″ 176×220 screen and a 2megapixels fixed focus camera, it should be retailed at about €190 ($240). This could be the first phone released with the Sagem ODM deal. –Sam Chan

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As if you are not sick of Samsung’s propaganda in real life yet, the company is opening an island on the online virtual space Second Life to promote their phones. And since Samsung was trying to tell us how thin those phones they developed with Softbank were, they got this phone-raining effect on. If you would like to use these cool looking phones in Second Life, you would need to answer some of the easy questions… in Japanese. Well, at least you don’t have to pay. More pics after the jump.

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Don’t know what’s the deal with the girl, but the phone is truly hot. Supposedly an updated RAZR (and KRZR) with extra large external screen, and a form factor thinner than KRZR. What’s more is that it supports reading out messages and emails in a computer voice. We don’t know how legit this is yet. More video and pictures after the jump.

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Samsung is one huge attention seeker. Today they presented 3 new phones for Softbank Japan, the 8.4mm thin W-CDMA 708SC candybar that looks like the GSM 820, but the screen is upped to 240×320 landscape (from 176×220), microSD slot is added and now supports up to 2GB. Camera is still at 2MP, but a subcamera for video conference is added. The 707SC II is a HSDPA folder with specifications that resembles that of the aforementioned 706SC, Samsung puts everything into a 11.8mm folder form that’s it. The 805SC is the world’s thinnest (13.5mm) DMB One-seg slider and runs on HSDPA network. Samsung will be partnering Swarovski to release crystal-mounted 707SC phones (pictured above). Expect the Picsel document viewer (MS Office, Adobe PDF), Bluetooth with A2DP as well as the English-Japanese-Korean dictionary will all come with these Samsung phones. Softbank said that hey should be ready this spring. More pics after the jump.

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Just when you thought it was the furthest they could go when Samsung started selling the 12.9mm slider and 6.9mm candybar last year, Samsung has managed to shred another mm in their labs. And at CES this year, they’re set to announce the new Ultra 10.9 and 5.9. The slider retains the 3MP camera, QVGA screen and microSD slot on the D900, whereas the camera on Ultra 5.9 has been upgraded from 2MP to 3MP from X820. Other specifications are unclear, we just have to wait for Samsung’s announcement at 3GSM. — Sam Chan

Samsung Ultra Edition 5.9 and 10.9 [via Cellularmania and Mobile-Review Russia]

Ok, so maybe a subwoofer can’t go on a diet, but Pioneer is thinning up one of their latest subwoofers. Think of the TS-SW2541D subwoofer by Pioneer as the Jared (from subway) of subwoofers. This bad boy can now fit into places subwoofers were never meant to go. Why, you might ask? Well, it’s because this subwoofer only needs 3 inches of depth to get that same bass sound from other subs that require much more space than that. This is a huge breakthrough for subwoofers, because now people can fit a lot more subwoofers in a lot less space. Just imagine that internet video of the woman losing her glass eye in the car with the music playing. Now imagine that same situation if that car had this subwoofer in it; both of that lady’s eyes would probably fall out. Now do you understand why this is such a big breakthrough?

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Not every house has a central heating system, in fact, not everybody likes central heating. It makes your skin dry, it hikes up your power bill and it gets the whole house stink. The reason why we don’t like heaters too much is mainly because of their shapes and sizes. Greenwood Japan has started selling their minipanel heater that can also serve as a warm water bag for your gouty legs. The panel itself measures 51 by 38 cm, and the thickness is merely 3.8cm. Impress Japan has taken the heater out for a spin and reported that it worked quite well. No it won’t be able to heat up the whole room, but it will keep you warm as long as you’re sitting next to it. Also, the power consumption is less than a 6th of that of an air-conditioner, and it can reach the blindspots of central heating. The GMP-150 is selling between 5000 to 6000 yen ($55) in Japan now.

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So now that the Zune has come out, everyone is griping about how big it is compared to the iPod. Then take the Nano compared to the iPod. Then take the Shuffle compared to the Nano. Once you get to the Walletex compared to the Shuffle, that’s where we stop. The Walletex is currently the slimmest/thinnest MP3 player, and its intended purpose is not to find a place in your pocket; it is aiming for your wallet. So how thin is it? It is so thin that your headphones can’t be plugged directly into the little device. You need to connect a USB adapter to it, which then allows you to go to your headphones with their humongous 1/8-inch plug. The Walletex is both water and dust proof, but swimming with it probably isn’t recommended. The players are set to go on the market in June of ‘07 and range in capacities from the lowly 128MB to an entire 2GB.

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