KDDI and Kyocera create speaker-free smartphone, we go hands-on (video)

Leave it to the Japanese to blast us away with another sweet smartphone feature we've never seen before. This Kyocera handset, running what appears to be a heavily skinned Android OS, has had its earpiece summarily disposed with, preferring to transfer your phone-call audio through vibrational technology. Due to the way this works through physical contact, it means you can actually touch any part of the phone with your ear to transmit audio. It'll even work through hats, in-ear headphones and -- as demonstrated above by the brilliant Mr. Suzuki (above) -- over noise-cancelling headphones. So how many years until we get to see this in real phones? You'll be happy to hear that the team-up between Kyocera and Japanese carrier KDDI is a real-world technology that will arrive in Japanese customer's hands later this year. However, further availability outside of the Land of the Rising Sun remains out of ear-shot.

Amar Toor contributed to this post