Nokia’s design monkeys have been let loose again, this time freed from the shackles of the eco-kindly and instead allowed to play with boffins at the UK’s Cambridge Nanoscience Centre. They’ve come up with Morph, a vision of the future (the future of mobile devices, that is, sadly not a flying car) which of course involves making calls and messaging, only using a handset crafted from nanotech-derived Fibril proteins; that means the device would be flexible, so a wristband could become a normal handset, or even unfurl into a web tablet.

Since nobody likes holding a grubby brick up to their ear, the Morph handset would be self-cleaning (using so-called nanostructured surfaces called “nanoflowers” that naturally repel dirt, water and fingerprints) and recharging would be a thing of the past as invisible “nanograss” all over the surface collects solar energy.

I hardly need tell you not to expect Morph – or anything like it, really – at the next Mobile World Congress. This is very much a design and concept exercise. But as soon as they can develop some of those smudge-resistant nanoflowers the better; I’ll have a small flowerbox of them on my cellphone, please, the touchscreen gets awfully grubby.