Marco – Cleverest Digital Pet (Concept) That Loves You

Among so many gadgets that know you, which one of them loves you?

marco3_image1

marco_180

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Knows stuff around you

Smartens non-smart items

Ever wished you could do the ‘Search” for your lost item in the real world? Marco sees you and your room, remembers the locations of your belongings where Marco last saw them. Let Marco ‘sniff’ your car key to get him to memorize and trace it. When you lose it, ask him where it is. Marco takes you to the location and lets you know with his laser pointer. Nobody wants to plug everything to the internet. With Marco, you won’t need to.

marco3_image8bMake the item you want Marco to memorize close enough for him to ‘sniff’ it.

room_image2Marco points out the location of the item with his laser pointer.

Motion User Interface

Does more than words

Marco loves you. He does more than just ‘shows’ or ‘says’ that he does, but he moves his body to express his feelings. Also with his cute movements, Marco lets you know alerts and notifications. The movements of Marco depend on the types and importance of the alerts and notifications. Getting an email from your girlfriend with many angry exclamation marks, having a squall in 5 minutes, forgetting your meeting appointment, you notice it with Marco trying to tell you are having a situation.
Marco also recognizes your simple gestures and voice commands.

marco3_image10With its self-balancing system, Marco makes smooth and cute movements for 360 degrees.

room2_image1When you get home after a long absense, Marco will frantically welcome you.

Monitor Your House

When you are away

Yes, you can see your room through Marco with your smartphone when you are away. But, Marco is not just a moving monitor. He is clever enough to answer your verbal questions, such as “Did I turn off the heater?” Of course he makes a phone call for you right after you leave home, “you forgot to lock the door!”.
You can watch and talk with your kids at home when you are away. How about enjoying chasing your kid by remote-controlling Marco?

room2_image2bMarco not just waits for you alone at home. See things at home when you are away with his eyes, moving around with his foot.

marco_babyCan’t wait to see your little baby at home? You can not only see her, but also play with her.

Behaves Like a Pet & More

Apps for characters & skills

Customize the settings to make Marco behave the way you like it, but if you want it to do more tricks, download apps! Hip hop dance, little puppy tricks, snake movements, etc. You can also make settings on how he responds to certain gestures. Based on your choice, Marco will even hide and makes a surprise appearance on your birthday!
Download apps to enjoy AR games. See your Marco through your smartphone and have fun with games both in the digital and physical worlds!

marco3_image7bHave more fun by letting Marco move along with your gestures.

marco_personaThe personality of Marco is up to your choice.

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Dial to Unlock (Concept)

Please email me if there’s anybody who wants to develop this app.
I have other more practical ideas waiting to be developed!

Creative Commons License
Dial to unlock by Mac Funamizu is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at petitinvention.wordpress.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://petitinvention.wordpress.com.

See also the similar previous post.


Mobile Phone Sketch: Von

Von is a mobile phone that is sensitive to sound, especially the knocking sound when it’s hit. It looks like a piece of xylophone. It’s almost as tall as an iPhone, but it’s narrower.


Knock it to check if you have unread emails or new phone messages. If you do, Von knocks back. The knocking sound varies according to the kind of the message (email or phone).


Shake it to see if you have unread RSS feeds or Tweets. The more unread items there are, the more it rattles. Remember when you were a kid, you shook a box of candy to see how many were left. I wanted to bring back that small happy moment with this device.


Keep tapping it on the rhythm of your favorite song. After a few seconds, it detects what song you’re tapping. Then it starts playing the song along the tap.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Polaroid iPhone Dock Concept

I wish there were an iPhone dock that instantly prints out the photo you take.


If you upload the photo to a website, you can add an QR code for the url on the back. For a geo-tagged photo, you can also include the map to show where the photo was taken.
Yes, I’m one of those people who still relish the feel (and smell) of photos.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Mobile Phone Sketch: Zimmer

This post is to tell all of you that I’m OK.

After the tragic magnitude 9.0 earthquake hit Japan on March 11th, I’ve received many many messages from around the globe asking how I was or even if I was alive. As I tweeted about my situation, I’m doing fine. I truly appreciate all your considerations not only for me but for those who have been badly affected by the earthquake, tsunami and the nuclear power plant issues. I’ll keep tweeting how I’m doing on my Twitter.

Also I wanted to tell you that Japan will get back to its feet for sure. Currently I’m going through many inconveniences that I have never experienced in my life (lack of water, gasoline, vegetables, power etc. etc.), so I’ll be able to think of ideas to overcome those difficulties. But for now, let me show you sketches I’ve been making since before the earthquake. It’s a mobile phone concept named Zimmer. (There’s nothing new or innovative here this time.)




[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/21422181]

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Thru –Lucent Mobile Phone Concept


Just like some of my previous mobile phone concepts, the transparent body would be pretty attractive.

What’s different this time though is that this Thru has a function to show 3D images behind the screen. It looks as if there were another world behind it because the images are made to look natural on the floor behind the screen.

So the email notification would be made like a game, which sounds fun.

There could be a fierce battle on your desk. In any case, I’m pretty sure it would be so fun that you couldn’t stop watching it.

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/18835228]

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

TOYOTA Smart Center 20XX


It’s such an honor that one of my future mobile phone concepts “Glassy Glassy” is in the TOTOTA official near future mobility life short movie!

It was aired on January 1st 2011 and you can see the movie on YouTube and GAZOO.


It depicts a smart life of a middle aged man in the near future.








I worked on this project last year and have been really excited to be able to get involved. Initially I was planning to design many other objects and gadgets in the movie (including the car), but this and that happened and the mobile phone was finally left in the end. But I’m really happy to see my concept ‘alive’ in a movie like this.

It’s been such a pleasure to be involved in projects of big-name brands such as TOYOTA and SOFTBANK. I’m hoping to have more chances to work as “concept artist”.


View it on YouTube