Immersion Corp. Improves Mobile Phone Touchscreen Technology
June 27, 2006 1:38 PM | Technology | Comments (0)
Immersion Corporation, a developer and licensor of touch feedback technology, has expanded its VibeTonz® tactile feedback system to now provide an inexpensive and robust way of improving the usability of mobile-device touchscreens. This new VibeTonz application can provide an unmistakable tactile confirmation to the user that their finger or stylus press on the device touchscreen was accepted as input. The VibeTonz System is currently used in a number of mobile phones worldwide for supplying tactile cues in ringers, alerts, games, and other usability features. |  |
According to a Gartner Dataquest forecast, smartphones that depend on larger screens to integrate the functionality of a mobile phone and a personal digital assistant comprise the fastest-growing portion of the mobile terminal market, with sales expected to double year-over-year in 2006, reaching 200 million by 2008. (Forecast: Mobile Terminals, Worldwide, 2005-2009, 4Q05 Update, 12 January 2006).
Touchscreens offer significant benefits to designers and users as mobile devices become a primary messaging, calendaring, and multimedia terminal. With screens needing to be larger to accommodate richer data and more complex applications, there is less device real estate available for dedicated mechanical keys. Touchscreens can provide virtual keypads adaptable to different operating modes through software control. For example, they can display a standard numeric keypad for voice dialing, then switch to a menu system optimized for e-mail. Directly touching an onscreen object to operate a device or manipulate data comes very naturally to users.
The field-proven VibeTonz System, comprised of VibeTonz Mobile Player and VibeTonz SDK, delivers a broad range of touch feedback effects to make phone use more intuitive and engaging. Designed to be embedded in any mobile device, VibeTonz Mobile Player exerts precise, high-speed control over the device's vibration actuator to produce tactile effects with unprecedented subtlety and dynamics. VibeTonz SDK provides cross-platform APIs and a suite of authoring tools for making development and customization of touch feedback effects fast and easy. The VibeTonz System has been implemented in mobile phones offered by leading operators worldwide to enhance the user experience in diverse applications:
-- VibeTonz synchronized vibrations in ringtones underscore the beat or melody, supplying the feeling that you've turned up the subwoofers.
-- VibeTonz-enabled ringtones have also been used for caller identification, where they provide information on who's calling even in noisy environments or when sound is turned off.
-- Mobile game play is more fun and exciting with touch feedback similar to that found in console games.
-- VibeTonz tactile cues in user interface features, like call dropped, key press, and ringing and busy signals, make phone operation easier.
-- VibeTonz cues can also be added to navigation features, helping users find unread or important messages, friends in the address book, and particular menu items quickly.
-- Alerts using VibeTonz effects can be made more distinguishable from each other and also more memorable. Users are more likely to remember the reason for the particular alert if it is distinct and discernible -- a subtle tapping, a reverberation like Big Ben's clock tower, or the rhythm of ocean waves, for example.
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