It's been about 15 years since it was quite normal for a lot of people to have a mobile phone in their pockets. While smartphone was the 'next big thing', we might have yet another interesting addition to the mobile phone family.

Sharp had come up with RoBoHoN - a humanoid robot phone, which is due to be released in 2016. It's so hard to impress people with new gadgets these days, but I wonder how this device will fare.

RoBoHoN is, in short, a robot with phone capabilities - it walks on two legs, recognize faces, and it talks! With all that performance, it is only 19.5 cm in height and weighs only 390 g.

Although I wouldn't personally put it inside my suit pocket, RoBoHoN is pretty cute. In addition to standard phone functions, it has face and voice recognition as well as a projector.

I guess what is nice about this robot-phone is that it has the ability to integrate into your life in a personal way, something that perhaps not a lot of device have not achieved.

If you talk to RoBoHoN, he will respond. If you ask him, he'll take photos for you, just like a friend would.

Sharp is yet to tell us when it will be released, or how much it is going to be. While this initial version may not be to everyone's taste (and who knows whether it will succeed or falter), it offers at least one possible evolutionary route for future electronic gadgets.