Per my point about a tri-corder (a clearly fictional device) had he made his project "more clearly fictional" it would have avoided that uncanny valley. Basing it on the iPhone was not a good choice for me. A friend of mine was doing the computer graphics thing and initially all of his "models" were real actresses (he used stills from films to figure out the models) and it was hurting his portfolio because the 'goodness' of his modelling skills was being subverted by the 'wrongness' of the model (people recognized the actress and then saw things "wrong" in the models of them). I suspect that is the case here is well.
