Kyocera’s Urbano Progresso tissue-conducting smartphone launching in Japan on May 30th

Kyocera’s Urbano Progresso Android 4.0 smartphone and its Smart Sonic Receiver tissue conduction are coming to Japanese carrier AU on May 30th. In case you missed our hands-on with a prototype at CES in January, or with the finished phone at AU’s summer lineup event earlier this month, the phone trades a traditional speaker for a vibrating display that conducts sound up your ear canal. The novel approach to speaker design makes conversations much easier to hear in loud environments, and improves audibility for the hearing impaired. The Urbano Progresso is powered by a dual-core Snapdragon S2 (MSM8655) running at 1.4GHz, and includes Japanese features like infrared and FeliCa for mobile payments, as well as an 8.1-megapixel camera. And if anyone is thinking about importing, the phone has antennas for CDMA, GSM, UMTS, and GPRS, for use all over the world.