Tucked away in the corner of the Olympus stand at Photokina 2014 was what could be described as a digital box Brownie with a Micro Four Thirds lens mount attached and a smartphone to its side. That's the fun of a show - you never know what you're going to find.

Designed in collaborative studies with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) the idea is for an "open platform" community to "expand the field of application for a huge variety of hardware such as smartphones ... but also interchangeable lenses."

In English? It looks as though we might see some Olympus lenses with a mount for smartphones and tablets, much like those currently built by Sony such as the QX1 and QX30 modules. That wouldn't be a huge surprise given that Sony is the largest shareholder in the company.

The confusion is that showing such a work in progress when it's described as "super compact" in size - when it's not right now, it's a small-ish box at best - doesn't show off the consumer potential just yet.

But with the right collaboration seeing Micro Four Thirds modules for mobile phones would be pretty cool we think - and smaller than the larger sensor equivalents of the Sony QX range. Watch this space, perhaps we'll see more come February 2015 when the CP+ camera show in Japan arrives.