Beautifully useless

Vertu, nokia's high-end subsidiary is releasing a new phone model, the Ascent.

The phone sports an exclusive design (ie. expensive with high grade metal alloys accompanied by leather and crystal screens) but offers little more than your standrd phone functionality.

Tak: the only reason why this is worth mentioning is that Vertu is one of the few companies casing technology in high end consumer packaging. The technology and features are no longer selling points: they add funciotnality to a status object. The fact that Vertu has actually produced a second model means that there is demand for this stuff and that technology is slowly yet surely becoming subsumed in normal life.