Judging by some of the newly announced phones, you might get the idea that we’re living in the future. But every once in a while, a concept of a phone comes along that makes it very clear that it’s not the future yet.

The Line Phone, which won the 2010 Furong Cup in Digital Product and Service Design Competition in China, is one such concept…

The Line Phone is a full touch phone in the extreme the front is a touchscreen edge to edge. Also, the defining feature of the concept is the touch sensitive rim, which plays a key role in controlling the user interface.

This rim serves a double purpose it has a dynamic backlight, which is used as an indicator, but its also used for gestures. From simple scrolling to more complex gestures like changing the volume, skipping songs, image rotation and even going back to edit a text before it has been sent. All based on where and how you touch the rim and the currently active app.

Corning and its Gorilla Glass had it easy so far there just was not any other product on the market that could match them. Yet today the Japanese company Asahi Glass introduced Dragontail, which promises to do just that.

Dragontrail is about six times tougher that the typical chemically-treated soda lime glass, which should make it perfect for protecting those precious capacitive touch displays. Asahi Glass demonstrated the Dragontrail resistance to scratching and dropping. Dragontrail even survived bending under 60kgs of weight and a hammer hit without breaking.

Check out the following video captured at the announcement event to see the durability of the thing yourselves.

Facebook launched an official Java app thats universally compatible with a wide range of feature phones. Facebook also made arrangements with 14 carriers for free online access through the app.

Today almost every smart gadget has access to Facebook. But since the smartphone market is smaller than the feature phone market, the next logical step was Facebook to go Java and jump onto the cheaper phones. The Facebook app for feature phones is compatible with a wide range of phone models and you can get if from this mobile address: m.fb.snaptu.com/f.

Facebook has made arrangements to ensure a head start for its app. A deal with 14 separate carriers ensures that their customers will browse Facebook fro free through the app at least for the first three months.

The carriers that participate right from launch are:

• Dialog (Sri Lanka)
• Life (Ukraine)
• Play (Poland)
• StarHub (Singapore)
• STC (Saudi Arabia)
• Three (Hong Kong)
• Tunisiana (Tunisia)
• Viva (Dominican Republic)
• Vodafone (Romania)

Carriers soon to follow:

• Mobilicity (Canada)
• Reliance (India)
• Telcel (Mexico)
• TIM (Brazil)
• Vivacom (Bulgaria)

Yeah, we know, its a short list, but Facebook is negotiating with other carriers as well so expect this list to be expanded. Until then, you can still use the widely free image-less Zero Facebook found at0.facebook.com if your phone has even a simple HTTP browser.

Do you remember rumors that Facebook will get a dedicated handset or even two, This info was confirmed by Bloomberg with INQ Mobile earmarked as the manufacturer. In Bluetooth certification documents we see the description of INQ Cloud Touch. It says this Android smartphone has a distinct feature of Facebook shortcuts located on the desktop together with different widgets displaying activities associated with your account. Nothing else is mentioned there. I think the model is middle of the road and it will not amaze the users. The picture below shows how this phone may look like. Beware it is not a real model.

This small company adapts other phones to be used in social networks using their expertise in the area. For example INQ Chat 3G appeared at the end of 2009 for €120-130. This entry level QWERTY phone boasted many apps for social networks. Was it competitive? Not really! The sales were far from successful.

INQ Mobile has no serious resources and they cannot develop their own models from scratch. In fact they offer special features for social networks based on ready-made platforms. They do not have a reputation of a serious innovator and the situation is unlikely to change soon. According to Bloomberg Facebook collaborates with INQ Mobile and the end product will appear in Europe in the second part of 2011. It is an intriguing story. Taking into account Facebook resources and their strong position in development of mobile phones apps there is no doubt they can create a strong software product. Nevertheless, Facebook does not require a special phone. They boast 500 million users and the key point is access from any handset.

Subsequently, the main thing for them is the client for all main platforms. Facebook cannot earn money on a dedicated model. The only option is to show their own vision of a model tailored for Facebook. It is only a niche product, but why not to create a working shell for Android or any other OS. In this case without developing a handset they could address many models and win. I have no other explanations. INQ Mobile is clearly interested in the project, but why Facebook should participate here is not clear. May be I am missing or misinterpreting something? Android as a platform for a Facebook model is also against Facebook proper in the long run. An offering from INQ Mobie will not compete against current models on the market as the company lacks expertise in the development of mobile phones.

2010 was most definitely Qualcomm year when it came to chips, its Snapdragon design was powering just about every respectable smartphone that was launched. At least thats how it seemed. We are barely two weeks into 2011 and already the talk has turned to NVIDIA and their Tegra 2 dual-core chipsets. These bad boys will be powering some of the most anticipated smartphones of the year and ramping up the specs list in the process.

Well you may not even remember, but Qualcomm did in fact announce its own dual-core chips last year and its saying that we will be seeing them this year, but that's about as specific as they are getting right now. Tablets from Acer, Compal and Pantech are expected to feature the new Qualcoom chipset and of course there may be some unannounced smartphone that will sport it too. If we have to wait until the latter part of the year to see Qualcomm chips in devices does that mean that they've missed the boat and are now playing second fiddle to NVIDIA?

Well NVIDIA has undoubtedly raised their profile in the smartphone game this year, you just have to look at the column inches dedicated to the Tegra 2 to see that they have got some mindshare there, but Qualcomm has an ace up their sleeve. Unlike NVIDIA Qualcomm can offer manufacturers the whole kit and kaboodle, the processor, the GPU, cellular, WiFi and GPS radios, etc. Qualcomm dual-core chips also feature an asynchronous design, which means that manufacturers can tweak each core to run at varying voltages and clock speeds meaning that battery life can be boosted in the process.