You don’t have to be a professional technology futurist to see that we are quickly approaching the existence of a pocket-sized device that is a camera, mp3 player, cell phone, PDA, and video game player. I’ve seen this as obvious for several years now. But what I couldn’t figure out is what the device would look like. When you see it, it’s so forehead-slappingly obvious.

iPods already have almost no moving parts, and it’s easy to extrapolate cell phone trends to a device that is nothing but a screen. And, if it’s ever actually released, we have Optimus keyboard that has little screens on each key. The usefulness is obvious when you see the pictures.

I present to you, The Black Box:

It’s a calculator, FM radio, cell phone, video game, etc. The interface changes with each function. This design won the “iF Design Award” in China for 2006. How gorgeous is that?

Stanley Kubrick would be proud.