Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Ahhhhh real tactile feedback atlast!

I haven't adopted the iPhone experience quite yet and one of many reasons is the lack of tactile response. Technoflic reported earlier this week Samsung's new touch screen only M4650 that featured some form of tactile feedback, likely a slight vibration. Which is cool, but by no means new technology. Well it seems that Nokia after 10 years of research has done something of note.

Apparently not much response is needed to sooth our needy nerve endings. Being shipped soon on Nokia's S60 this response is just 0.1mm of feedback. Done by letting the screen move 0.1mm and coding software to respond in the same way a standard button does is all it took. Really Nokia ? 10 years ?

Internally named "Haptikos" or "to touch" this technology was developed because of hardwired human need for not only the push of a button but the subsequent "push" back that occurs. When this new technology was tested on a user familiar with non-tactile response the user was convinced they were typing faster, even though this was not the case. When tested on someone who was not used to a normal touchscreen they did not notice this responsiveness, but when taken away they were upset. Basically, tactile response is part of human nature and thanks to Nokia it is now part of our tech nature.

[via redferret.net]

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