World's First 'Non-Intrusive' Smartphone Announced

Monohm Inc. has announced the creation of Runcible - a personal device modelled on the pocket watch.

Flaunting a high resolution, round screen, the device includes a high-performance phone and camera which is meant to "refocus users' attention on real people and the real world".

"People need something to let them control their digital lives in clean, quiet, simple ways," said Aubrey Anderson, CEO and co-founder, Monohm Inc in a statement.

"Runcible is the alternative to the increasingly invasive and commodified smartphone whose app-centric approach distracts us from our lives instead of helping us live them," Anderson added.

Runcible is built on top of Mozilla's Open Source Firefox OS, and KDDI Corporation is Monohm's first carrier partnership.

Runcible's operating system is based on Open Web standards.

Unlike other systems which rely upon complicated middleware and cannot integrate across platforms, applications and devices, Runcible users can simply access the power of the web to command and control the growing number of IoT devices and connected things around us.

What's heartening is that unlike smartphones which become obsolete within two or three years, Runcible's parts can be removed, repaired and upgraded, enabling the device to be kept for decades.

Runcible will never beep, alert or otherwise interrupt us, enabling us to keep our attention where it was always meant to be.

The device would be available by the end of this year.