Cool new mobile internet device runs on Android, connects your TV to your toaster

Inbrics is what I suppose you could call a “new media” company. It works very heavily on using Internet technology to make all of the screen-based devices in your house completely interconnected. By “screen-based”, I mean your phone, your TV and your computer. This isn’t exactly a new idea, but Inbrics is doing with some really sleek, sexy products. At the moment, it’s promoting its new Mobile Internet Device, the MID M1 – which was first revealed at CES and will be receiving a wider launch at Mobile World Congress.

What’s the MID M1?

It’s really a beautiful device. It may be the slimmest Android device currently on the market – which is impressive considering it has a 3.7 inch AMOLED touch screen that slides out to reveal a QWERTY keyboard. Have a look:

It’s also got the things one would want from an internet device: Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, 3G (or WiMAX), a 3MP camera with a VGA camera on the front, 16GB of internal memory and a MicroSD card slot.

Where’s the convergence?

Inbrics creates a whole range of media devices based around Internet Protocol. The central one really is the SoIP Homestation. SoIP stands for Services over Internet Protocol, and it allows your phone services, TV, Internet services and mobile phone to share information and affect one another. For example, part of the selling point for the MID M1 is that it can be used a control device for anything in your house that is hooked up to the Homestation.

And all of these things are running on an Android platform.

What we think?

This really interests me. It’s something that hadn’t really occurred to me – I was aware that Android could cause a proliferation of mobile devices, but I hadn’t considered the non-mobile possibilities. Pared-down versions of Android could be installed on pretty much anything with a chip-set in it. I know that this kind of rampant speculation isn’t really healthy or useful, but you could theoretically use your Android phone to set the heat level on your toaster. Bonzer!

Ok, ok – so I find that exciting and all, but there’s still things to consider. If you want to kit your house out with interconnected Android devices, they still have to be Inbrics compatible. And I can only imagine this will cost a tonne of money – the M1 is still being paraded around in the “isn’t this pretty?” phase of product promotion. We don’t know how much it will cost yet. Needless to say I’ll be going to check out these guys at MWC and see how much more information is available.