The Rachel UI looks exactly like — and I do mean *exactly* like — the original concept user experience the Windows Longhorn digital lifestyle UX team was developing circa 2002. The transparent shadowbox effect, the picture swoop-in assembly, the music folder experience with the artist image at top, even the blue wave background is the same. It closely matches like the first set of Glass/Aero renderings from early Vista releases. Honestly, it’s freaking uncanny if this isn’t a blatant copy. (And I’m not saying that it is.)

This design work makes me wonder if SonyEricsson lifted the entire Dutch design team for this effort after they got collectively canned in Redmond.

It’s certainly cool to see this on a handset, but these are all ideas I’m sure that Sony has seen before in many incarnations on desktop explorations.