For the last few years a Silicon Valley start-up called Danger has been quietly trying to figure out a proprietary way out of the coming interface crack-up.

Now, thanks to a manufacturing deal with Sharp of Japan, it's ready to go.

Well, almost. It still has just one North American carrier agreeing to fully support the device, called Hiptop. And it still won't let people take pictures of the thing. Fortunately, The Register's Andrew Orlowski managed to do this drawing of it. (Don't quit your day job, Andrew.)

The Flash Demo of the device, on the main Danger site, shows a cross between a Gameboy and a cell phone. It's worn on the hip, provides PDA functionality, and can also be held in the hand.

It includes many of the things we say we want in a cell phone -- games, a camera, office functions, synchronization. But it misses many of the things (like a voice interface) I think are essential to the future. And in order to get this close to the market Danger has had to make some decisions that render the device highly proprietary, including support for AOL's Instant Messenger and Java (which Verizon may take as an excuse to dismiss it entirely).

Still you have a full Web browser, and you have something that can handle 3G cellular broadband. I could easily see this, in a slightly-ruggedized form, getting some major market share in industry, especially if you put some sensors on it. (How expandable is it?)

Is this going to take over the cellular market? No. Is it going to provide a strong third player in the PDA market? Maybe, although whether that's a worthwhile goal is open to question.

Certainly it's another entrant in next year's hot interface market, alongside the Motorola "navigation key" and the iPod. (How tough would it be to put a phone into an iPod? Just asking.)