Touch for Mobiles – Update October 31, 2006
Posted by reto wettach in innovative interfaces, mobile, physical interaction design.trackback
Touchsensitive areas or screens are one of the hot directions for mobile interaction.
Not too new, but still interesting is Sony’s concept of Pre-Sense (Rekimoto, Ishizawa, Schwesig, et. al., 2003) , which basically combines a touch-pad with keys. Amongst other features, this technology allows interfaces, which are showing the user, what will happen, if he presses the key.
Quite similar is a the phone PG2800 by the Korean company PanTech: This phone can recongnize finger writing on top of the keys.
Another quite new patent is looking in using touch area surrounding the screen: Apple just filed this patent, which descibes an Electronic Device Having Display and Surrounding Touch Sensitive Bezel for User Interface and Control.
Through these interaction principles, the screen area will not be disturbed by some interacting fingers. Furthermore the screen might not get dirty of scratches through being used as an interface. (via hrmpf).
[...] Even though it sounds silly, here’s an interesting idea for touchless mobile interaction with a touchpad. Korean company Pantech patented the concept. This phone can recognize finger writing on top of the keys, so users would be allowed to draw as well as typing as they used to (as seen in the picture). Keeping the touchpad smooths the transition from current habits to touchless devices and increases the immediate functionalities. (via touch for mobiles) [...]