Nokia’s new emotional phone technology
Nokia is busily working on its next generation touchscreen interface designed to beat the iPhone (which, naturally, every other company is also trying to do!). Called, unsurprisingly, the Nokia S60 Touch, it's a brand new user interface that will be offered to any manufacturer using the Symbian S60 platform.
This is Nokia's approach to thwarting the iPhone hype machine: they're not just releasing their own phone with a similar user interface, they're releasing a user interface separate from the phone so that every other phone can look like an iPhone too. The idea is to make the iPhone's interface common to all phones, thereby reducing its impact, and removing its current unique selling point at a stroke.
Interestingly, this is also the approach being adopted by Microsoft with its forthcoming Windows Mobile 7 platform.
We've already seen a video of the new Nokia S60 Touch in action, but it seems that Nokia aren't content with just developing an iPhone clone - they're actually working on developing emotional phone technology.
More details and pics after the jump.
Nokia S60 Touch
UnwiredView's article speculates that Nokia will be using Active Matrix LCD with Integrated Optical Touch Screen technology. This lets the S60 Touch do the same things as the iPhone's interface with infringing any of Apple's patents.
From a patent that UnwiredView has unearthed, we can see some of the ways the S60 Touch can interact with the user, including:
- Clockwise, counter clockwise circular rotations - browsing, scrolling listing applications
- Subsequent typing by a single finger (Tap1-Tap2…) - activate device/phone, run/execute pre-selected option
- Finger stays above some item/object/icon, followed by slow movement - select object till end of the move
- Crossed perpendicular lines (X mark) - Delete
- Perpendicular moving breach (Check mark) - Accept/Verify
- Enclosed Curve around group of items - Select enclosed items
So far, all pretty iPhone-like.
However, Nokia engineers seem to be taking the idea of physically interacting with a device and running with it. A new set of patents outlines an idea for a mobile device controlled by hand gestures - and not just simple waves across the screen to switch it off, like Sony Ericsson's latest efforts, either.
Nokia and the emotional phone
Nokia's latest patent extends the sensors of a phone beyond the confines of the touchscreen and out into the 3D space surrounding the phone itself. This lets phone track the physical hand movement of the user, and respond to those accordingly.
What type of movements? Well, how about the following:
- Select: - Picking up gesture - Finger 1 at a display corner or some reserved area, Finger 2 moves slowly under a displayed object to be selected
- Copy: - when selected, click by single finger on the object
- Paste: - fast double click by a single finger
- Move: - move slowly two fingers located on moving objects
- Delete: - double (fast) click by two fingers on previously selected object
- Switch: - switching (on/off) is based on change in directions of fingers movement or, alternatively, on a change in finger acceleration
- Select object attributed to the pointer position: Open/closed hand
- Forward/Backward Browsing: anticlockwise/clockwise cyclic rotation by a single finger
- Zoom in/Out: expand/close two fingers
- Run/Execute pre-selected icon/command: make a circle with your thumb and pointing finger (an OK sign)
In other words, Nokia foresees the time when we'll interact with our phones using some variant of sign language!
As UnwiredView points out, this is just a patent application, and doesn't necessarily represent reality. Personally, I can't see a phone being developed that requires this degree of hand gestures to control it, as it's far from intuitive. You need to learn a whole new set of gestures to control the phone, which is no different from having to learn a new set of commands or new series of menu items to select.
The whole point of gesture-based interfaces is to make the user interface more intuitive, not less. And let's not even mention the letters R, S and I!
However, this is still a powerful way of getting a phone to interact with its environment, and even if Nokia doesn't use the ideas contained within this patent for a phone's user interface, you could still create some pretty amazing applications with it.
Imagine interacting with a Nintendogs-like game with this interface, where you actually make the gestures to stroke your virtual pet, rather than just rubbing its head with a stylus.
Equally, deleting the contact details of your ex-girlfriend simply by the flick of a dismissive finger would certainly be more satisfying than pressing the delete key! And just think of the joy it would give to chavs, who could end an argumentative phone call by flashing their palm at the phone and shouting a withering "whatever!"
People like expressing themselves using gestures, and the more emotional we get, the more expressive our gestures become. Having a phone that responds to these emotional gestures would make it much more a part of us than any technology we've had before, and would certainly compel us to treat the phone as a personal item, like a favourite pair of shoes, rather than as yet another faceless hi-tech gadget that we change twice a year.
The first generation of the Nokia S60 touch most likely won't feature this technology - but with this new patent, you can bet the second generation will. If you thought the iPhone's interface was great, just wait until you use an emotional phone!
(and note how hard I tried to avoid using the term "emo-phone"!)
[Source: UnwiredView]
