Nokia has filed for a US patent for a mobile phone with a rotating numeric keyboard. No, we don't mean an old-style dial lookalike, but a numeric pad that can turn round to retain the correct orientation when the handset it flipped into landscape mode.

The application details what looks like a standard candybar handset. The clever bit comes when you rotate it through 90°: the screen slides up to reveal a QWERTY keyboard. We've seen this sort of thing before, but the novel component is the really clever bit: the numeric pad also rotates so that it's now in the same orientation as the QWERTY layout. Thus:

Flip it all back and you have a standard handset again:

Nokia original filed its patent applicaton back in September 2005, but the filing was updated (http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220070065220%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20070065220&RS=DN/20070065220) yesterday, which is what brought it to our attention.

Thanks to reader Callum for the tip

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