Not the newest of news, but something I’d been meaning to mention for some time is the announcement from Swiss watchmaker Ulysse Nardin of their leap from making fine mechanical watches) and nautical precision instruments since 1846, to the modern technology of mobile telephony.

Initial reports from Gizmag and Treehugger were light on details, but I’ve managed to discover a bit more about this ingenious hybrid device.  It is called The Chairman, and is a smart phone developed with the fusion of traditional precision clockwork mechanism and best of breed cell phone technology. It’s a fascinating combination of old and new.

From the UN website:

Similar to an automatic watch that receives power from the force of a rotor, the Chairman does the same: charging a built-in battery using the kinetic energy of the moving rotor to supply supplemental power to the Chairman.

Technical details are as follows:

Milled from the finest materials, the Chairman hybrid smart phone features the newest in digital technology and incorporates a specialized fingerprint recognition security feature, a high-resolution digital camera and digital video recorder, a 2.8” user-interface with touch-screen and oversized numeric buttons for quick reference and seamless typing.

* 2.8″ multi-touch screen
* Fingerprint reader for owner identification and phone lock
* Numeric keys with high quality tactile response
* E-mail and Internet application
* 5 megapixel camera
* Wi-Fi for network connection
* Sapphire Glass
* Kinetic rotor system

The Chairman is currently in production and pre-orders can be placed on the Chairman website, where can be found several animations of the phone in action, different models available, and much more. While I find the anchor icon a tad - well, nautical - the rest of the phone looks rather swish. I look forward to reading more as the Chairman is released, which surely can’t be too far away.