AllThingsD » haptic

Motorola Multitouch Investment Could Herald Buttonless Smartphone

John Paczkowski — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:26:54 +0000

Interesting investment news from Motorola today. The company’s investment arm, Motorola Ventures, has put some money into Sensitive Object, a French start-up that has developed haptic technology that can transform almost any surface into a multitouch interface.

As I understand it, Sensitive Object’s “Anywhere MultiTouch” platform uses acoustic touch recognition to capture the audio vibrations that occur when an object is tapped or swiped and uses them to relay user input for information and control. It can be applied to a variety of materials–metal, glass, plastic etc.–rendering them touch-sensitive. Motorola (MOT) could obviously put this to good use, especially helping the company differentiate its touch smartphones from those of its rivals.

Imagine how infuriating it would be for Steve Jobs if Motorola, not Apple (AAPL), was first with an entirely button-free smartphone?

Immersion: The Full D7 Demo

Kara Swisher — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:20:09 +0000

Immersion (IMMR) is the innovative company behind haptic, or touch feedback, technology for some videogame consoles and mobile phones.

At the seventh D: All Things Digital conference, Immersion demoed its TouchSense for touchscreen keyboards and Immersive Messaging.

With TouchSense, the user is not only supposed to be able to get haptic feedback, but can also feel the virtual keys.

Immersive Messaging will also use haptic feedback, as well as gesture recognition, to send messages that employ physical senses rather than text.

See Walt Mossberg and the Immersion guys trade digital hearts. No, really, they did.

Also, I “twiddled.” Don’t ask.

Here’s the video of the full D7 demo:

[ See post to watch video ]

Immersion: The Full D7 Demo

Kara Swisher — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:18:03 +0000

Immersion (IMMR) is the innovative company behind haptic, or touch feedback, technology for some videogame consoles and mobile phones.

At the seventh D: All Things Digital conference, Immersion demoed its TouchSense for touchscreen keyboards and Immersive Messaging.

With TouchSense, the user is not only supposed to be able to get haptic feedback, but can also feel the virtual keys.

Immersive Messaging will also use haptic feedback, as well as gesture recognition, to send messages that employ physical senses rather than text.

See Walt Mossberg and the Immersion guys trade digital hearts. No, really, they did.

Also, I “twiddled.” Don’t ask.

Here’s the video of the full D7 demo:

[ See post to watch video ]

D7 Tech Demo: Immersion

Oliver J. Chiang — Wed, 27 May 2009 23:15:19 +0000

Immersion (IMMR) is the company behind haptic, or touch feedback, technology for some videogame consoles and cellphones. At D7, the company will reveal two of its newest technologies: TouchSense for touchscreen keyboards and Immersive Messaging. With TouchSense, the user is not only supposed to be able to get haptic feedback, but can also feel the virtual keys. Immersive Messaging will also use haptic feedback, as well as gesture recognition, to send messages that employ physical senses rather than text.

Session Highlights

[ See post to watch video ]

Live Blog

Walt and Kara welcome Immersion CTO Christophe Ramstein to the stage. Rock music plays.
Christophe: I am here to unveil two new things: Immersive Message and TouchSense Keyboards. Walt: So it makes an iPhone virtual keyboard feel like a mechanical keyboard. Christophe: Bingo.
Everything here is new, shiny, and of course, available for productization.
Cue infomercial: Ever feel like virtual typing is difficult? Now there’s TouchSense! Christophe types on the virtual keyboard and we hear the keyboard sounds. Pretty realistic. Kara tries it too. Christophe: What do you feel? Kara: Funny. I feel like it’s going to shock me.
Walt: This is very cool, but what’s the advantage? Can I not look at my keyboard now. Christophe: It’s about transitioning between keys, and yes, without looking. Sounds alone don’t do the trick. We can do other things with our haptic feedback and kinesthetics too.

Walt: Do Olli-Pekka and the Palm (PALM) guys know about this? Christophe: [says some stuff]. Walt: But you didn’t answer my question. Christophe: I understand that. [conference takes a beat, then moves on.] This was paraphrased, of course.
Immersive Messaging: You can get physical sense-feedback through messaging. We also have “hapticons.” Hapti-huh? Kara: It sounds like what Kirk fought in the last Star Trek. Walt: Those were the Romulans.–Only at D7. I think it sounds like the Decepticon’s kid brother.
Christophe demonstrates a hapticon heart on his phone. He now tells us to use our imaginations….Pretend you (Walt and Kara) are on a trip, and you are lovers. You can create a heart and it can even beat.
Christophe blows onto his screen, and was able to send the heart over. He says, you can send these heart hapticons over the Internet. Kara: So it’s not like some creepy guy on the plane will send you one. Christophe: Touch the heart I sent you. What do you feel? Kara: It’s beating.
Now Christophe’s using a hammering gesture, tapping on his phone. Walt feels these taps on the receiving end. Kara: He keeps nailing us. Walt: Not what I expected.
The CTO starts to wax and wane: There are infinite possibilities. Walt: Actually there aren’t infinite possibilities in this limited-time demo.
Now onto twiddling. It sounds a bit racy. Kara is intrigued (euphemism). Twiddling is that special time after I get off work, beer in hand, Christophe begins. Immersion may want to rethink that selling point.

Twiddling turns out to be a way that two people can simultaneously touch their own phone’s touchscreens and virtually feel each other, again through haptic feedback.
Christophe shows off the ability to say “cheers” to a friend with a champagne sound/feel of bubbles and clinking.
Walt: Will this be an iPhone app? Christophe: I could tell you, but then I’d have to keeeeel you. Walt and Kara: Fair enough. Off with you now! You’ve been a good sport.

Apple R&D: The "R" Stands for Rumor

John Paczkowski — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 18:17:57 +0000

One of the investments we make is to introduce new products that initially cost more because they deliver an entirely new level of value to the customer. Then we ride the cost curves down with value engineering and volume manufacturing, leaving us far head of our competitors. We have some of these types of investments in front of us that I can’t discuss.”

– Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook, July 21, 2008

The media will gather tomorrow at Apple’s Cupertino, Calif., headquarters for an invitation-only event–presumably about updates to its MacBook and MacBook Pro lines. And as with every Apple (AAPL) product launch, tomorrow’s has been preceded by feverish speculation about what form, exactly, those updates will take. Among the rumors currently making the rounds:

Apple will uncrate a new line of MacBooks whose cases are carved from a single brick of aircraft-grade aluminum.
Apple’s refreshed MacBook line will include a machine priced at below $1000, perhaps even as low as $800.
The new MacBooks will feature glass, multi-touch trackpads and LED-backlit displays.
They’ll swap out Intel’s chipset–not the central processor–for Nvidia’s MCP7A, which reportedly blows the doors off Intel’s G45 in the graphics department.
Blu-ray will be offered as an option on high-end models.
Finally, Apple’s new line of portables will include the unmatchable “state-of-the-art new product” to which Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer and COO Tim Cook referred earlier this year, and that product will be a tablet. Something along the lines of the “MacBook Touch” described by MacDailyNews back in July.

Think MacBook screen, possibly a bit smaller, in glass with iPhone-like but fuller-featured multi-touch. Gesture library. Full Mac OS X. This is why they bought P.A. Semi. Possibly with Immersion’s haptic tech. Slot-loading SuperDrive. Accelerometer. GPS. … App Store-compatible, able to run Mac apps, too.”

An interesting spread of rumors, some quite likely, others improbable … and yet entirely plausible because, after all, it’s Apple we’re talking about. We’ll find out which of these proves true tomorrow at 10 a.m. PDT. I’ll be covering the event live, so be sure pay us a visit tomorrow.

Apple R&D: The "R" Stands for Rumor

John Paczkowski — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 18:17:57 +0000

One of the investments we make is to introduce new products that initially cost more because they deliver an entirely new level of value to the customer. Then we ride the cost curves down with value engineering and volume manufacturing, leaving us far head of our competitors. We have some of these types of investments in front of us that I can’t discuss.”

– Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook, July 21, 2008

Apple will uncrate a new line of MacBooks whose cases are carved from a single brick of aircraft-grade aluminum.
Apple’s refreshed MacBook line will include a machine priced at below $1000, perhaps even as low as $800.
The new MacBooks will feature glass, multi-touch trackpads and LED-backlit displays.
They’ll swap out Intel’s chipset–not the central processor–for Nvidia’s MCP7A, which reportedly blows the doors off Intel’s G45 in the graphics department.
Blu-ray will be offered as an option on high-end models.
Finally, Apple’s new line of portables will include the unmatchable “state-of-the-art new product” to which Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer and COO Tim Cook referred earlier this year, and that product will be a tablet. Something along the lines of the “MacBook Touch” described by MacDailyNews back in July.

Think MacBook screen, possibly a bit smaller, in glass with iPhone-like but fuller-featured multi-touch. Gesture library. Full Mac OS X. This is why they bought P.A. Semi. Possibly with Immersion’s haptic tech. Slot-loading SuperDrive. Accelerometer. GPS. … App Store-compatible, able to run Mac apps, too.”