If you love your MacBook and want to see what could be in store for you in nine years, check out this mockup of the MacBook 2020. Imagining how devices will look in the future is always a crap-shoot; more often than not, we look back on these “futuristic” designs with mockery either because technology has advanced much faster than the designer expected or because they simply looks horrible. Tommaso Gecchelin has decided to bite the bullet and offer up his design for the MacBook 2020, the “first molecularly manufactured laptop.”
The first thing that will jump out is a very awesome piece of design theory, which is a “scalable micro-lattice nanomaterial.” If you’ve ever seen those small plastic balls which can be pulled apart into a larger, hollow geometrical figure, that’s the closest example I can think of. Essentially, the laptop can exist as something slightly larger than a business card in size and be expanded into a more sizeable laptop. Magnetic hinges connect the two halves of the laptop, meaning that you can create just about any viewing angle you like. Even better, since it’s all wireless, you can just separate the two halves if you have reason to.
The nanocoating of the laptop means you’re not confined to one color or even one material of your laptop; you can alter shades and go from plastic to metal at will. The holographic screen continues building off the current 3-D trend, while also going along with our Star Wars fantasies (no, not those ones) of true holograms. The holographic screen is quite impressive, and in the design example you can see how useful it could be for 3-dimensional modeling. Still, I believe standard screens with 3-D options will be what we find ourselves using primarily in the future, although holographic capability and specialized apps could exist. But the idea of carrying around a holographic display, either as a laptop in this example or even as a mobile phone, is quite appealing.
You’ll have to wait nine years to see just how much of this truly becomes a reality and how much of it will still be years or decades or further in the future. For some more cool designs, check out some mobile phone concepts such as the LG Slide and Clover Phone.
