Pantech IM-U170: use your face to control your phone
Pantech are obviously feeling a bit left out with all the iPhone chatter, and so have announced a new phone of their own.
The Pantech IM-U170 is a good looking silver phone that features rather a novel concept: a face recognition game.
Apparently, the built-in camera traces the movement of the user’s face to use for input instead of controllers.
So I guess nodding your head moves your character up and down, while shaking your head from side to side moves it left and right.
Weird! Who said Apple had then most innovative user interface on a mobile phone?!
More details and pictures of the Pantech IM-U170 after the jump.
From the press release:
Pantech Group, the leading Korean handset manufacturer, has announced the launch of its IM-U170 handset, a slim phone fully wrapped with a metal case as part of its design innovation initiatives.
The new IM-U170 clamshell handset features enhanced both refinement and durability, coming in a full metal case made of magnesium. The metallic keypad - beamed with EL* light- is another addition to the simple and refined design of the phone, crowning the metallic touch of the phone.
The new handset provides a fresh and fun way to play an interactive game, which is the world’s first face-recognition mobile game in the industry. The built-in camera traces the movement of the user’s face to use for input instead of controllers. Users can have their real-time faces while playing games with the IM-U170.
Man Gi Kim, the spokesperson of Pantech Group said, “Due to its exceptional range of unique features including the metal case and the face recognition game, the IM-U170 is expected to exceptionally appeal to mobile phone users who have been seeking for new and different features and applications in their phone. The IM-U170 will come to the fore as a breakthrough in the metallic mobile phone segment.”
The IM-U170 also focuses on its dynamic and elegant Graphical User Interface(GUI). The animated user interface includes mobile wallpapers and backgrounds, employing the Flash technology.
The dual camera – a 2 mega-pixel camera and a VGA camera – mounted on the IM-U170 presents video telephony function. They can also recognize a shape of face and automatically adjust it to take the best photo when shooting.
Other highlights include a 2.2-inch QVGA LCD with 260,000 colors, 128 polyphonic ringtones and a multi-tasking MP3 player. Also it has document viewer functionality, enabling users to scroll through the documents in MS office file format.
The new phone is now available in Korea under Pantech’s superior mobile phone brand, SKY.
*EL :Electroluminescense
Pantech IM-U170 Specification
- Clamshell handset in metal case + metallic keypad
- Main: 2.2’’ 260K QVGA TFT LCD
- Sub: 1 line OLED
- Dimenstion: 96.5 × 48 × 15.4 mm / weight: 106.6g
- 2M CMOS + VGA CMOS
- Face recognition technology
- MP3 Player
- 128 polyphonic ringtones
- User memory capacity: up to 120MB
- Electronic dictionary
- Document viewer
- Internal antenna
