JSC unveils 'world's most expensive' mobile

The world's most expensive mobile phone - costing a cool $1.3m - has been made in Russia.

The Diamond Crypto Smartphone, designed by luxury accessories maker Peter Aloisson, has sections of rose gold as well as 50 diamonds embedded into the cover, including 10 blue diamonds.

Aloisson, 46, currently designs about four phones per year for celebrities and wealthy businessman. Most of his luxurious phones retail for at least $40,000.

The new phone, which was developed by Moscow-based JSC Ancort Company, uses powerful encryption technology to provide added security.

This level of encryption will provide secure protection of information against kidnapping, technological blackmail, financial racketeers and corrupted state officials, according to JSC Ancort.

"The philosophic idea of the project is to attract the attention of the world community to the problem of the preservation of a person's individuality and works in the contemporary man-caused world," said JSC Ancort in a statement on their website.

"Modern technology can easily change (falsify) the voices and the speech of people speaking over the phone, and it costs very cheap.

"Naturally, boundless possibilities to manipulate a person’s consciousness appear, when a person is unable to define whom he is talking to on a phone; falsified conversations aimed to compromise people are created.

"The consequences may be catastrophic for mankind. The intrusion into the private life of people with the aim to compromise them may become global. First of all it may affect the prominent people of the planet who are the intellectual potential of the civilization.

"For example, a falsified phone conversation of the head of a state may cause tremendous internal and external conflicts."

JSC Ancort said the phone offers SMS, MMS, E-mail, Internet, WAP, JAVA support and a media player.

Built on the Windows CE operating system, the phone also features a high-resolution colour TFT display and enough storage capacity for about 4,000 numbers.

The Diamond Crypto Smartphone, which has 29 preset melodies and tones, took over eight months to develop.