Haptography. Input gets real.

Another dimension to touch.

via TED

Real-world objects and digital info work hand in hand.

via Diginfonews.

Interesting proof-of-concept demo from Fujitsu.

Biometric touch. Disney Research Labs develop a screen which recognizes one user from another by touch.

STORY >>

DISNEY RESEARCH LABS >>

First, I must confess I wasn't aware that Disney had a research lab which develops such things as advanced biometric touch-based technologies. But they do. And then again, it's not difficult to envision some Disney-specific use cases for unique-user interfaces.

This research project, which Disney calls "Touché," could enable touch-based devices to recognize one user from another simply via the touch of the finger. The technique works by sending "harmless electrical currents" through the user's body, and then identifying the echo via the level of resistance by the body.

The fact that Disney is developing such a technology means that we might see something like this at their theme parks or perhaps in kid-centric tablets for home and for school. But it's not difficult to envision this technique being used as an additional layer of biometric security in smartphones, ATM's, and point-of-sale terminals.

I don't want to sound goofy here, but this Disney project could enhance user interactions and simplify our lives. It could turn out to be a touch of magic.

Going "lumpy." Another cool demo from Tactus. Buttons appear from nowhere my dear.

BBC Story >>

Thanks to HM for sharing this link.

Here is some more WOW potential for the handset vendor who gets this right.

Can you have your QWERTY and eat it too? Here is what Tactus Technology has been talking about for several years now. Production begins late 2013, early 2014 according to the interview below.

BBC interview with Tactus:

Canopy Sensus. Making the case for the back of the case. But whatever happened to LucidTouch from Microsoft & Mitsubishi?

Could this change user interactions going forward? And backward?

PC World STORY >>

From what I can see, there's not too much exciting coming out of CES 2013, yet. For the most part, what's happening in Vegas can stay there for now.

Indeed, one of the more interesting products to be announced is an iPhone case, the Canopy Sensus. Sensus enables the back of smartphones to be used for touch input. It's an interesting approach. But not a new idea.

Back in 2007 Mitsubishi together with Microsoft introduced the "LucidTouch" input system. LucidTouch (please see the second video below) was an interesting approach to making touch a more natural user interface. Why block valuable screen real estate with multiple fingers when the back of devices go completely unused? And since then, other companies patented similar back of device uses. None have come to market.

It's interesting to note that Mitsubishi made one of the first true multi-touch products, the DiamondTouch, which was being shown years before the iPhone.

Companies such as Mitsubishi and Microsoft are great at showing off lab-based innovations. But it's time for some real-world excitement. Hopefully for them, ideas such as LucidTouch can help them with a comeback.

Canopy Sensus case for the iPhone, CES 2013:

LucidTouch from 2007 via Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL) & Microsoft.

Tactus Technology. Will device form factors soon be changing... in front of your eyes?

NEWS SOURCE: MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW >>

A nice tactile technology that could change things. Eventually one of these technologies will catch.

More photos at MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW >>

Qeexo's FingerSense. It's the what touch of the touch input world.

MIT's TECHNOLOGY REVIEW STORY >>

Will smartphones and tablets soon be wondering what touched me?

There are almost certainly more than one billion touch devices being actively used today. Android-based devices account for at least half of a billion, iOS for around 400 million, and there are tens of millions of touch Symbian devices still being used. And there are Windows Phone phones, and there are Bada phone phones. The list goes on, and it is touching.

With at least 90% of smartphone sales being touch monoblock, the number of full-touch devices is growing very quickly. So it's nice to think that many of these devices could be introduced to a new UI paradigm through a software upgrade.

Check out this user input enhancement called FingerSense from startup Qeexo. FingerSense informs the underlying platform about WHAT is touching the screen: a thumb or an index finger. A knuckle or a fingernail. A big, fat stylus or a little, skinny one. Etc.

Apparently Qeexo accomplishes this using a clever software algorithm which can, among other things, distinguish the sounds and physical vibrations of what's touching the screen together with variables such as thickness and placement.

I could imagine that clever UI designers could do some amazing things with such flexibility. And poor UI designers could ruin a platform.

With touch device activations around two million per day (around 23 per second), it's nice to think there's something a bit refreshing on the horizon. Unfortunately I've seen lots of good ideas like this die on the operating table. I do hope this one has the magic touch.




Sources:
PCMAG: Android Device Activations Top 500 Million
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2409601,00.asp

Engadget: Apple brags: sells 365 million iOS devices, 140 million iMessage users
http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/11/apple-brags-sells-365-million-ios-devices-140-million-imessage/

Wave hello to a new UI parameter: electrical fields feel 3D gesture input.

TECHNOLOGY REVIEW STORY >>

MICROCHIP PRESS RELEASE >>

Some pedant scientists are quick to remind us that there really is no such thing as touch as we know it. The sense we call touch is actually an illusion. A misunderstanding. A method for the mind to simplify a more complex process of electron avoidance. We can hover and transfer electro impulses, but we never really reach out and touch someone. The universe is actually a very repulsive place.

As far as smartphone user interfaces go, we've been stuck in 2007 for five years now. The monoblock touch form factor now accounts for approximately 90% of all smartphones. The world is flat as a pancake it seems, full of dark dark black, rectangular screens.

When will the next UI shift happen? Follow the components.

Here's an interesting story in MIT's Technology Review about a new technique for devices to sense 3D gesture-based input for devices. Rather then using cameras or accelerometers, Microchip Technology has introduced a way to used electrical fields to sense 3D movment. Microchip calls this enabler "GestIC Technology," and could lead to some interesting user interactions in devices a few years down the road. Picture an accurate gesture-based UI in a car, or perhaps under the car. In the kitchen, or in the garden.

A touch replacement? Probably not. But it's clear that handsets are becoming more sensitive. And thanks to the magic of sensor fusion, data from the growing number of device sensors can be made to work together in wonderful ways.

Perhaps we won't be waving goodbye to touch, but rather hello to another step towards the UI of the future.

3D input cubed. Concept video from Microchip:

For Nokia, the gloves come off. But now they don't have to. How does egocentrism affect product plans?

When the first iPhone was unveiled back in January 2007, I was working for Nokia out of "Nokia House," the company's beautiful bay-side crystal headquarters located in Espoo, Finland. A few days after Apple's announcement, I happened to have lunch with one particularly sharp Nokia vice president. Just like most water-cooler talk in the building that week, the iPhone became the topic of our lunch-time conversation. While I (like most of the other grunts in the building at the time) insisted the product would be a game changer for the smartphone business, that particular Nokia VP was rather dismissive of Apple's entry into the segment. His key argument against the iPhone's potential market success was the all-touch form factor. After all, he said, the device couldn't even be used with gloves on.

Wouldn't work with gloves on! I thought that was unique rationalization, but I then began to hear the same argument from some other top Nokia executives. While this might sound like bizarre thinking, you have to realize that these executives come from the land of the frost, not too far from the North Pole. Winters often start in October and can end in April. If you live in an environment where you might need to wear gloves outdoors half the year, it's not strange to want a smartphone you could answer without stripping down a bit.

So, yesterday Nokia (CNET story) unveiled two new smartphones, the Lumia 920 and the Lumia 820, which could indeed be used with gloves on. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time a mainstream smartphone vendor touted gloves-on usage as a feature. I doubt any California-based handset company would ever have thought to make this a key-selling point.

After working in foresighting for many years and seeing many good products and features get canceled for strange or no reasons, I have often wondered how much egocentrism can contaminate product and feature planning. Egocentrism is the very natural result of projecting one's own experiences and environment to a general level. It's gut instinct gone very wrong, and as we see in industry over and over again, egocentrism can lead to some extremely painful and expensive lessons.

I've said many times that there is no such thing as a technology disruption, that is, rarely does a new technology come along and change the playing field in a very short amount of time. For the most part, competitors who do their foresighting homework have access to the same information and the same or very similar technology developments as the so-called disruptor companies. No, there are no technology disruptions, only bad judgement calls and strange decision making.

It's good to learn from your own mistakes. It's even better to learn from the mistakes of others. Welcome common sense in your decision making, but beware the potential deceptions of egocentrism.

Don't let your company get left out in the cold.

Does your view of the world fit across the globe?

Will “touch-tile” become a new device form factor? Making buttons where there were none.

via SINGULARITYHUB >>

Tactus Technology >>

Is this some wow opportunity for some device vendor?

This tactile display stuff on touch looks pretty amazing, but it's nothing spanking new. Concepts have been around for years. The idea is great: a touch device that can create keys when needed. Want a QWERTY to text, a numeric keyboard to calculate?

Many of us miss real physical keys. But they are becoming an endangered species on smart devices. Could they begin to make an occasional appearance on touch devices of tomorrow?

It will be interesting to see how well solutions like that from Tactus Technology work in the field. But some component vendor is bound to get this right at some point. Then get ready for the touchtile form factor. (Sorry, couldn't help but use another hybrid word.)

A phabnomenon? Is the “phablet” a real new device form factor?

In a world that has brought us “stagflagation,” “brunch” and “Brangelina,” comes the latest portmanteau. It’s the “phablet.” It’s too big to be a phone, too small to be a tablet. And now we have to wonder if phablets are a real phabnomenon?

Suddenly I've been coming across the hybrid word “phablet” very often. I suppose it’s an obvious combo addition to the lexicon. But what the heck is a phablet? One definition I’ve found is it’s a touch device with a screen size between 4.6 and 5.5 inches. Any smaller, it’s a phone. Any larger, it’s a tablet.

Samsung’s Galaxy Note is the device that probably started the species. The Note has a 5.3-inch touch display and even comes with a stylus (so it’s a “stouch” device... or a “stablet”). And Samsung’s new Galaxy SIII could very well become the best-selling phablet in history. With a 4.8-inch display, please don’t confuse it with being a smartphone.

Other vendors such as HTC, LG, and Huawei either have or will soon be shipping phablets as well.

Is it time for all device vendors to get their phabet acts together? Phobviously it is, so make a note of it and don’t phall behind.

Part lion, part tiger, it’s a liger.


Part phone, part tablet, it’s a phablet.

Is it soon time to wave bye to touch? This computer accessory from Leap Motion gives 3D gestures meaning.

Leap Motion SITE >>

Oh man, touch is like so five minutes ago. Is gesturing the wave of the future of input? Is it time to have a Leap of faith for a new UI?

Leap is an iPod-sized PC accessory from a San Francisco-based startup called Leap Motion. The company is looking to old, reliable replace input methods such as the mouse, keyboard, and touchscreen with basically nothing at all. Leap senses hand movements in three dimensions, so waving in the air now has meaning.

Of course, this is nothing ground breaking per se: Microsoft's Kinect, now available for the PC, has the same ambitions. But Leap Motion is claiming that it is up to 200 times more accurate devices such as the Kinect. The company claims Leap can distinguish individual fingers and track movements to a 1/100th of a millimeter.

I say it's time to move forward to new amazing new UIs. Touch is for the old folks now. Set us free.

Implications: Device vendors looking for some wow, and you know who you are, look at the possibilities of bringing Leap-like capabilities to tablets and smartphones. For gaming companies and other app vendors, think how Leap bring a new dimension to the user experience.

Can's touch this:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d6KuiuteIA

Haptics: touch... with feelings. Is this the next WOW opportunity?

Macworld STORY >>

Anybody in the handset biz who really cared about technology developments and who knew how to click on a YouTube link should have expected the potential impact of multi-touch. Well before Apple announced the first iPhone, Jeff Han, who was a research scientist at New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, wrote of and showed demonstrations of multi-touch interfaces. To make matters more painful for some current handset vendors other than Apple, some of that work was partially funded by some leading software and handset vendors of the day.

Here's the rule guys: you snooze, you lose.

Now a new level of touch input could be fast approaching. Literally a new level. Haptics. I first started hearing about haptics back in 2005. Haptics had the potential to add feeling to touch screens. Some great use cases were floating around, like read keyboards popping up out of touch screens, or joysticks that could change. Buttons could raise and recede as needed. The touch world meets the click world.

There are lots of rumors (and backed by solid evidence such as patent applications) that Apple will be implementing haptics in a future generation of iOS devices.


Multi-touch was the WOW in iPhone 1.0. To the untrained eye, it did look like nothing before it. Apple touched the audience like nobody before it. And the competition could only stare at the the on-coming headlights.

There hasn't been much WOW in the market since then in my opinion. Will haptics be the next great thing to stand out? Perhaps. And then get ready for the shouda, coulda, woulda's.


Will haptics raise the bar?

Here it is! Nokia’s amazing tablet concept! See it here, now! PIC!

Apologies for the misleading tabloid-style header. But there are no lies here. Only facts and memories.

I’ve touched upon this Nokia concept device a number of times only because I find that it tells an interesting story about vision, innovation, and credit. Rarely do new products pop up out of the blue. All inspiration has a history attached.

Before the turn of the century (August 1999 at the IFA exhibition to be exact), Nokia introduced a working tablet prototype that drove tech journalists and open-source fans wild: a large, connected touch-screen device based on Linux. Users could surf the web, write e-mails and chat, and even catch the game via its built-in digital terrestrial receiver. All content was equal. The word "convergence" was all the rage at the time, and Nokia just redefined the term.

The device, known as “MediaScreen,” ran a UI layer Nokia called “Navibars,” which was in essence, an advanced and flexible menu system. Users could create bookmarks to television stations just as easily as they could to a website. Users could create folders which could hold broadcast links, web info, photos, and applications. A sports folder, for example, could contain videos of little Johnny’s football match, an icon for Eurosport TV, and the latest scores from the web.

And then what happened grandpa? Well, the dot.com bust didn’t help. Things became tight here and there and companies began to concentrate making-money ventures. Nobody knew how bad things could get. And the component costs must have been quite brutal at the time. But if I understand the evolutionary line correctly, MediaScreen did act as innovation for other Nokia projects and programs -- sort of a grandparent to a future generation of tablet-like devices such as the 770.

Timing can be a cruel dealer of the deck. Woody Allen once said 80% of success is showing up. But it’s really showing up at the right time. And showing off. When Apple’s iPad was first introduced, I called it Laptop2.0. Now, if I am reading this news correctly, Nokia has confirmed that the company will be entering the tablet market, although few details are provided. Will this be Nokia’s own 2.0.

Nokia’s “MediaScreen” tablet concept from 1999:

Get ready to Touch & Hover! Is this the evolution of touch? Sony’s new “floating touch” input method hits the nail on the head.

MOBILE GAZETTE STORY >>

Most Android handsets look pretty much alike to me. And I don’t blame the vendors for this general lack of form factor innovation. In this game of follow the leader, there’s little reward in thinking different.

But this isn’t to say there’s no opportunity to improve the block screen experience with a touch of wow here and there.

Sony’s new Xperia sola is a typical Android device from a tier one vendor. It has a 3.7-inch 480 x 854 display, a 1GHz dual-core processor, and blah, blah, blah.
But Sony’s addition of “floating touch” deserves special attention that it probably won’t get. The idea of sensing by hovering has been around, but it’s nice to see what could be a sold real-world implementation. This addresses the problem of requiring a surgeon’s precision with some touch tasks, such as browsing busy pages with many small links. I suspect that “floating touch” is a feature users have been longing for.

Note also the NFC SmartTags feature and accessories which allows users to easily pair and set locale customization.

There are some sweet details here. Best of luck to Sony in making the show.

Is the future of touch non-touch? Get ready to hover. Noalia's "Nemopsys 3D" gesture input system.

STORY via PHANROID >>

Is this the end of the fingerprint smear campaign? Get ready to hover your hand.

French company Noalia has develped a gesture-input method that uses electrostatic energy from the usuer's hand rather than a camera for input.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Note to self: is the stylus about to make a comback? The Nintendo DS generation is here.

What's old is new again.

Samsung's Galaxy Note suffers from an identity crisis. Is it a big smartphone? YES! Is it a small tablet? YES! I suppose in the end, it depends on the size of the user's hands.

With a 5.3-inch Super Amoled HD display, the Note is a big device compared to the average, everyday smartphone. The iPhone 4S, for example, has a 3.5-inch display. Otherwise, Note has the type of hardware specs one would expect of a high-end Android-based smartphone these days: 8 megapix camera with 1080 HD video support, 3G+ (no LTE in this version), and memory expansion.

But it's the inclusion of a stylus with the device that I would like to touch upon here. Samsung calls the included stylus the "S Pen." It should be noted that HTC recently introduced a tablet, the HTC Flyer, that also shipped with a stylus.

For Note, Samsung has optimized the Ice Cream Sandwich Android build to support S Pen input and included a number of exclusive S Pen apps.

Stylus input is of course nothing new. Palm popularized pen input back in the mid-1990s with their "Graffiti" language on the Palm Pilot. But as capacitive touchscreen became the industry standard support finger-put, the stylus got lost.

Will it soon be time again to stick with the stylus? Let's remember the guideline: three makes a trend.

Recommendation to device vendors: Follow consumer acceptance of stylus in top of smart devices. Track especially how the Nintendo DS generation reacts to this potential trend. Platform vendors could need to adjust deep OS support for more input methods than finger touch.

Augmented Unreality. Virtual worlds and reality collide. A touching concept.

PORTALS >>

Is this a future form of the internet? Of gaming. A new form of touch input? The opposite of augmented reality?

Check out the fascinating "Kickstarter" interaction concept by Jayne Vidheecharoen, an MFA candidate from the Media Design Program at the Art Center in Pasadena, California.

There's lots of potential with this concept. Parallel universes are close at hand with this. Best of luck with the project:

Imagine this. Blind input with SnapKeys 2i.

via UBERGIZMO >>

PRODUCT WEBSITE >>

ITU to T9 to SWYPE to some voice for some things. Is there room for a brand new touch input scheme at this point?

SnapKeys, the company behind the 2i software, calls it "The Imaginary Interface." (T be honest, I don't quite understand this yet.)

The world will get a closer look at 2i at CES next month. This is going against Nuance, a company few people know by name, but a company that is cornering the input market. I can't imagine it will be easy for 2i to take hold in 2012.

Generation eX-print. What’s wrong with this picture? It doesn't move. The clock is ticking of physical media.

Via SLASHGEAR >>

Show a ten-year-old child of today an old rotary-dial telephone, and they might not quite know how to work it. Heck, they might not even recognize it as a phone.

Let’s look where things are heading for print media. How many music CD's do your children buy? None would probably be the most correct answer. Physical media is facing a floundering future.

How many more generations are left that will buy physical magazines and newspapers? It’s sad to say this, but it’s soon time to move on. This won’t be a painless disruption: lots of jobs are on the line. Think of all the magazine kiosks around the world. And the delivery people. And the production departments. And, well, lots of change.

But of course this mean opportunity for someone. Tablet and handset makers: this is your market now. Get it right and ride the wave.

Here’s a cute little home video that’s probably going to go viral if it hasn’t already. What’s wrong with this picture? Well, it must be broken:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXV-yaFmQNk

Sometimes it’s simply time to let go: