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Gyroscope Gives CellPhones 'Tilt Control'

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the innovation-in-user-interface dept.

Paul Stamatiou writes "You can now control cellphone activities by simply tilting it. "If you have a game involving keeping a car on the road, you do that by tilting," says company spokesman Jan Ahrenbring. The tilting technique can also be used to sweep large virtual pages across the phone's screen, which acts as window on the information."

5 of 213 comments (clear)

  1. Not all that new by chamenos · · Score: 3, Informative

    the technology used in this case might be more advanced (gyroscope), but the idea of tilting the phone to activate a function or control something isn't new. i had a casio watch many years back that would automatically turn on the backlight for a few seconds if you lifted up your wrist to look at it. i'm not sure this is a good thing though...just one more thing to keep drivers who shouldn't be on the road in the first place distracted.

  2. Re:Another feature I don't want/need. by heironymouscoward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Perhaps you're living in the wrong country. My Nokia GSM has more than 6 hours' talk time, the battery runs for ten days or so, and reception is crystal clear everywhere I go.

    All it is really missing is motion control. That way I can answer the phone simply by picking it up, hold a call by putting the phone down, and scroll through my address list by shaking the phone like a lunatic instead of clicking those damn arrow keys.

    My guess is: if the rocker control is cheap and easy to hook up to the UI, it will be a natural and useful extension to the way we use phones.

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  3. Been done before - quick patent it by sr180 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Is it like this or this or this And this goes back to 1999. Ahh but its on a phone now. Quick, I'd better patent it before someone else does. Bah.. Old idea. Just a new application.

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    In Soviet Russia the insensitive clod is YOU!
  4. Rotation by rf0 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Also from this months Stuff Magazine there is a perview of this phone on the inside back cover. One other funky thing it can do is that if you rotate it 90 degrees it will actually flip the screen orientation

    Rus

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  5. Re:Another feature I don't want/need. by gpinzone · · Score: 4, Informative

    Get educated. CDMA is much more advanced than the TDMA technology that's in the GSM standard. Besides, you want GSM? Get T-Mobile. You see how easy that is when you have a choice?