Synaptics gets touchy-feely with smart phone
concept
Patentable Buttons-free Handphone! Yippeee!!
By Tony Smith
21st August 2006 15:45 GMT
Spurned by Apple, which now makes its own iPod clickwheels,
touchpad maker Synaptics today turned to mobile phone by touting
a handset concept based around its ClearPad "optically
clear, capacitive touchscreen", a gesture-based input system and a
UI that adapts entirely to the needs of the application in the
foreground.
Dubbed Onyx, the concept phone was co-designed with industrial
design house Pilotfish, but the Synaptics intput device is clearly
the star of the show, allowing any element of the UI to become an
interactive control.
"The ClearPad accurately recognises not
only points and taps, but also shapes, complex gestures, and
proximity to the user's finger or cheek. This creates new
possibilities such as assigning functions to two-finger taps,
closing tasks by swiping an 'X' over them, sending messages by
swiping them off the screen, or answering a phone by holding it up
to your cheek. The prototype phone uses a dynamic UI, where
applications are layered and opened simultaneously, allowing a
seamless flow of information between applications," Synaptics
said.
Building all this into a working phone is another matter, of
course. But synaptics is presumably hopeful its concept is sexy
enough to get the likes of Nokia, Motorola and Samsung on
board.
Ironically, Onyx incorporates the kind of input features Apple's
much-rumoured touchscreen-driven widescreen video iPod is said to
support - and which Apple has attempted to patent. Indeed, it was
speculated at one point that Synaptics and Apple would once again
be working together on iPod input equipment. Maybe there's more to
Onyz than meets the eye...