Phone + bestiality = good design?

Somehow, at the 2008 Good Design Expo, Japanese company Willcom showcased a concept phone to what Forever Geek refers to as “the adoring public”. The phone is not only oversized, but in the shape of a teddy bear, and requires the user to talk into the bear’s crotch as though to give it fellatio. Fortunately, the bear is anatomically incorrect.

How such a design monstrosity (it’s not even a good-looking teddy bear) is being displayed at the Good Design Expo is amazing. Even more frightening is that the concept phone sells for $500 (which would tend to suggest there’s little concept about it). While we hate to say it, only in Japan could such a monstrosity be considered a desirable product to both manufacture, and ultimately buy.

What’s with designers coming up with wholly unpractical products, anyway? While the phone’s design is an expensive novelty aimed at being “cute” (presumably in an attempt to infer that the bear is whispering to the user), there’s no clear way to dial un-programmed numbers via the bear-phone. All in all, the novelty of the phone could probably be re-created with some clever hackery of an existing phone and teddy bear, for much cheaper than $500 and with arguably better results on the cuteness scale. Plus, enterprising folks at home could either find a way to make communication work in a way that one doesn’t need to talk to the bear’s crotch, else slip full-on into the realm of bear-phone bestiality. Either way, we bet it’d sell in Japan.

Tagged as: gadgetry, homebrew, japan, mendax.org, phones, sexcrime