Rarely do announcements in the tech world surprise us, such is the nature of the leaks and rumours, but HTC's 12 January announcement has literally come out of the blue.

That's about as much information as we've been given so far, with a "save the date" dropping into our inbox, marked with the words "for u". There's little else to garner from the note, other than the colour and texture of the background.

Finished in blue, it looks like the sky with a whisp of cloud, although it could as easily be ocean blue, with HTC Ocean thought to be the codename of the company's forthcoming handset. The "for U" could refer to the personal nature of these devices, with HTC's next user interface said to go without buttons and rely more heavily on gesture and voice.

That, however, seems a little unlikely, given the proximity to Mobile World Congress, the more popular venue for smartphone launches.

Then we have VR. With HTC Vive having been well reviewed, but still needing momentum, perhaps this is about freedom, losing the tether. VR is currently a very personal experience and perhaps HTC is going to use some of the Vive experience to push into a system that offers more freedom.

Or maybe HTC is going to venture into something new. The company has explored a number of different product areas recently - fitness devices with UA, the HTC Re camera - so perhaps the sky is a reference to drones. Drones have been appearing from all quarters and perhaps HTC wants to apply its industrial design skills in this area.

In truth, for once, we really don't know. 

HTC has promised that we'll be hearing more soon and we'll keep you updated when we do.