Mozilla's Seabird: a concept phone worth paying attention to

I noticed this Mozilla Labs demo (it is worthwhile watching the video in HD) this morning and two things struck me. The first is the concept phone’s similarity to Nokia’s “The Way We Live Next” concept (the video is embedded below) and the second is that this phone appears to be running Android:

So is Mozilla now working on a mobile OS? Thankfully, no. Doing so would be foolish and probably a recipe for disaster given the overwhelming popularity of the top three smartphone platforms: Android, iOS and Blackberry OS.

Does Mozilla have plans to produce a mobile phone?

No. Mozilla produces Firefox for Mobile, the popular Firefox browser for mobile phone systems such as Nokia Maemo and Android. You can find out more about Mozilla Firefox for Mobile here.

So what is this all about?

The Mozilla Seabird, part of the Mozilla Labs’ Concept Series, is an experiment in how users might interact with their mobile content as devices and technology advances. Drawing on insights culled from the Mozilla community through the project’s blog, a focus quickly developed around frustrating physical interactions. While mobile CPUs, connectivity and development platforms begin approaching that of desktops, the lagging ability to efficiently input information has grown ever more pronounced.

It is a really interesting concept and as futuristic as it looks, I don’t think it will be too long before we start seeing devices with similar capabilities entering the market.

Here is the Nokia video for its “The Way We Live Next” concept. Notice any similarities/trends?