The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City revealed today that it has added three Japanese mobile phones to its collection. The handsets are all part of the ' au design project ', under the umbrella of the au network brand used by KDDI .
Two of the three models are available to buy for use on Japan's second-largest wireless network, while the third is still at the prototype stage. The Infobar, which launched in October 2003, and November 2004's talby model are both generally sold free with a new contract. The Media Skin concept phone may never go on sale, but was still judged to be a work of art.
The Infobar, which has long been considered to be one of the most attractive phones around, was designed by Naoto Fukasawa of Japan, while the talby (a personal favourite, actually) is the creation of the UK-based Australian Marc Newson .
Despite the lack of cutting-edge technology in the two production phones, they're now officially beautiful. J Mark Lytle
