Haptic Phones

March 15, 2005

Technology in Focus features analysis of recent technology news articles, by the consultants in Technology Group, IDA. This is the top pick of the month from a list of 10 - 20 news analysis compiled monthly.

Article

The Touchy Feely Side of Telecom, 27 Feb 05, New Scientist

Analysis

by Steven Ong, Consultant, Enabler Technologies

The Third Digital Sensory. Sight and sound have always been the two primary means of communication between computers and users. Touch however is increasingly becoming the third channel for human computer interaction. Like early computer graphics and sound hardware, devices that convey information through a user's sense of touch have traditionally been too expensive or too poor in quality for widespread adoption. The difficulty is due in part to the wide ranging of tactile sensations that need to be mimicked by the system in order to represent the basic sensory of force, vibration, temperature and texture so as to enable a person to interact and react to his/her surrounding while at play or under split second respond situation.

Haptic Phones. The announcement from Samsung opens up a wide myriad of possible applications that could be enabled by haptic technology on mobile. Most obvious of which would be gaming, similar to what we have experience on the console game pads and controllers. Games could provide the stunning realism of effects like explosions and collisions, making the experience more fun and enjoyable. Music, video, and other mobile applications could also be enhanced with tactile rhythms, beats, effects, and usability cues. Mobile device could support different tactile sensation to identify different caller while in silent mode or even drawing focus to specific email message from the clutter of mails downloaded to the mobile to signify higher priority messages when scrolling through.

Just like graphics and sound, touch can be coded as digital bits and sent in packets over the internet or a cellphone network then reassembled or "rendered" in some form on the receiving device. The transmission of data would however need to be fairly robust as a minute delay of 200 milliseconds, something which is acceptable for phone conversation or watching of video on the mobile, would make a difference in the replication of accurate tactile feedback for the receiving device.

Samsung haptic technology is based on Immersion's VibeTonz platform. The platform comprises of a SDK library that allows the developer to simulate four basic sensation namely, vibrational (periodic), positional (texture, enclosure, ellipse, Spring, Grid), directional (constant, ramp) and restrictive (damper, friction) effects. Currently the SDK is only available as BREW extension for CDMA phones but Immersion is already working on making the VibeTonz platform available on the Symbian smart phone OS which is widely supported by handset manufacturers like Nokia and Sony Ericsson. Immersion will provide the handset manufacturers with a hardware design spec related to the power amplifier and associated circuitry as well as the VibeTonz mobile player for embedding into the phone.


Conclusion. For the general users tactile feedback on mobile is something that may be good to have but would be extremely beneficial for the visually handicapped. Imagine the use for RFID implanted around the MRT station sending directional information to a haptic phone that provides accentuated feedback that is more innate to the human sense of touch. The world would surely become more interesting for these less fortunate folks who may then be able to interact and move freely amongst us without fear or embarrassment.

Some words about the writer
Steven Ong is a consultant with the Technology Group, tasked with the responsbility of identifying, tracking and exploring leading edge enabler technologies in the mobile wireless arena. He is currently looking at areas such as Digital Rights Management, wireless security as well as smartphone application platforms.


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