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Samsung Launches 3D Movement Recognition Phone
Shuttertalk reports that Samsung have launched the world's first phone equipped with a continuous 3D movement sensor. Movement sensors in mobile phones to date have been limited to slope calculations and applied to some games and bio-related features. The potential is there to do away with the need for complex keypads on mobile phones, MP3 players, digital cameras and other handheld products. Many functions will be controlled by movement instead of buttons.
*ring ring* Hello! Chen calling. I speak James please! No James here man... Oh! Is this left left right down left right up? What the...
I can already envisage PocketPc enabled mobile phones being desperately shaken,swirled and juggled in all imaginable directions until their user realises that the O.S has just...frozen :S
Du kan glomma dina ensama stunder, du kan lita paa teknikens under - Wilmer X
I was just trying to phone my girlfriend...
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
most cellphones become pen-sized. Because most people were taught to write with a pen.
Sig. under reconstruction.
Yet another move forward in the ubuiquity of computing, not long before we don't even know we are using computing technology and everything is done automatically for us, scary or a move forward ?
Without tactile feedback, waving fingers in the air and making funny gestures to do things is a waste of time and customers will hate it.
You can use your optical mouse without it touching the tabletop too, but it isn't at all a reasonable way to operate it.
But what happens when you're in the middle of a tech support call and you slap your hand on your head....? Does the phone know to hang up at this point?
Let's see ... I can program my phone to only need two keystrokes to get to functions I use the most often, there are nine available but I only have three programmed because that's all I use. All of my most often called numbers are voice enabled, and I don't have to open the phone to take calls on my blue-tooth handset. This new phone lets me can draw numbers in space, althought I cannot imagine that is easier or faster than using the keys. And I can draw 'Y' or 'N' instead of pressing soft keys.
... nothing to see here....unless you are a gadget freak and want to buy something that will no longer be offered in 6 months due to a lack of interest.
From what I can tell, the only purpose of this is for games. And we all know how successful they have been combining phones with game systems.
Move on
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
I don't know how well it works for navigating setting and such but I see interesting options for game play. I was hoping to see this sort of tech in Nintendo's DS or the Sony PSP.
Remember all that time we spent as kids playing with plastic boxes and moving BBs aound the maze? I spent hours doing that! Bring this to my phone/handheld, please! I need another way to waste time!
I don't think, Therefore I'm not.
The article says that the "new technology" uses an accelerometer, yet states: "This technology will do away with the need for complex keypads on mobile phones".
Clearly, they are jumping the gun. What about people on bumpy trains, busses, etc? Granted, it might be an easier means of input for people walking or standing, but for people in cars, trains, etc, etc, It won't work, and clearly won't "do away with" a standard "complex" input keypad.
Though, it is kind of cool to see components like accelerometers finding their way into everything. With modern mobile phones, maybe they'll be programmable for use as a bluetooth wireless "air mouse"? One would only hope the spec would be at least open to mainstream programmers.
It's the same thing as the Gyromouse.
:) where you can throw the phone to simulate a dart.... :)
I saw the Philips version of this gyromouse once for the cheap price of 15 dollars and didn't even consider it.
Who wants to keep his hand in the air all the time, apart from the presentation every now and then ?
Every heard of RSI ?
The only nice thing I can think for it is some throwing game (darts
Probably not a very good idea
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Wouldn't this kind of thing be extemely hard to use?
Imagine having to write an SMS by hand in the air, there would be a much greater strain on your muscles, it can't be done in a small space, and it is SLOW.
I mean does anyone here like the idea of going back to writing communications by hand? Or for that matter, shaking the input device to do something that can be done by moving your thumb 3cm?
Much like the add-on available for Firefox i guess. Making mouse gesures, although this brought it's own querky problems so that was another add-on to get removed. I suppose it may be handy for one or two funtions used most frequently.
Now you have to move the phone and hold the steering wheel still... great job, guys! I'd hope for better voice controls, like 'dial 8-6-7-5-3-0-9" type stuff.
stuff |
Man its bad enough that my phone randomly phones people in my pocket when I sit down, let alone when I'm walking along the road..
My phone's autolock doesn't always work so I don't really want to phone australia by mistake cause I just ran up a flight of stairs!
"So there he is, risen from the dead. Like that fella, E. T." - Father Ted Crilly
I can picture this being used for a horizontal menu where movement of the phone exactly matches the movement of the menu. You could even have vertical submenus. But the main problem with this is that it really doesn't innovate in the way they seem to think it does. It's a neat trick, but I don't see it having any major effect on how we interact with our phones and other devices. It could be useful for gaming, but even then the feature is ultimately just a fairly limited gimmick.
Phone: "I noticed your hand waving up and down, would you like me to conect you to a sex-chat hotline"
User: Puts his meat away, and turns phone recognition off.
...or would shaking the phone about to control games make it a tad difficult to follow what's happening on the screen?
Two words: handicapped people. Some people can't type on those classic keypads. Now they can make simple hand gestures to call somebody. For the rest of us, it's just another phone with totally useless features.
To date, movement sensors in mobile phones have been limited to slope calculations and applied to some games and bio-related features. However, the SCH-S310 can recognize continuous movement in 3-dimensional space.
Two technical problems with this that I see.
Accelerometers have accumulation errors that always render them inaccurate. For true accuracy you need an external point of reference.
Consider, your phone senses that it accerates 5 m/s/s for 2 seconds, it can compute its current velocity no problem.
Now in stopping it, sensor error causes it to think it's accerlated -4.9999 m/s/s for 2 seconds. It's stopped, but it thinks it has a nonzero velocity. Not a big deal yet, but over time these errors accumulate, and after a day or two your phone thinks it's cruising along at 500mph. Perhaps a constant decay term on the stored velocity can force the system to tend to zero over the long term.
But a second and bigger issue is that of frame of reference. For many of the applications described here, I don't care how fast my phone is moving with respect to the earth, I care how fast it is moving with respect to me. So if I get in a car in stop and go traffic, how does the phone discriminate that motion from motion I do with my hands? Or what if I'm just walking along trying to edit my phone book with gesture motions and someone steps in front of me and I stop short? bye bye Cindy, guess we won't be going out tonight after all.
Maybe very clever software design can mitigate this problem of discriminating intended from unintended motion, but it's a difficult problem.
Given that we all know loads of people who have dialled numbers due to leaving the keyguard off in the pockets, or even recieved call. Imagine what this gem would do if left activated in your pocket 8/ Still as long as it terminates silly support calls when you throw it at a wall I dont mind.
But will it be intuitive enough to know when to play Barry White and when instead to cue the Pet Shop Boys?
1.
User: Hey, look at this!
* User turns around to show friend
User: Bugger. Just a sec.
2.
Executive 1: What if the user is trying to walk and use the phone at the same time? It is, after all, a mobile phone.
Executive 2: Oh yeah, you're right, it's a load of crap isn't it?
Of course, you can't expect the executives to think of problems with their ideas, because that would imply that they were fallible.
~~Every few years or so I'm accidentally fashionable!
and what about using the camera? How the h*** can you make a picture if you have to move the phone up/down to take it?
A loud clatter of gunk music flooded through the Heart of Gold cabin as Zaphod searched the sub-etha radio wavebands for news of himself. The machine was rather difficult to operate. For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive - you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope. It saved a lot of muscular expenditure of course, but meant that you had to sit infuriatingly still if you wanted to keep listening to the same programme.
Remember the TV series Quantum Leap, where Al used to shake the controller for the mainframe (Ziggy?) around? Looks like they were ahead of the times.
Better start keeping a look out for people around you suddenly behaving weirdly for a day or so...
i like the idea of a pen phone where you dial a number by writing it down though - good for SMS messages, too...
... just imagine the crazy shit they will be hearing on their morning run.
You can't expect to wield supreme executive power, just because some watery tart threw a sword at you
People already shake things when there is something wrong with them. I wonder what this phone will do when it becomes victim of someones urge to "shake-it-and-it-might-work" reflex.
I guess some jokester software engineer will make it call tech support...
I can use my stylus on my graphics tablet without touching it (and in fact have to), and it comes quite naturally because I'm used to hovering a pen above a page. This is simply a case of what you're used to, you're not used to hovering a big heavy optical mouse over the desk, and you're not used to waving your hands arround to make phone calls.
I'll consider buying one of these only if they license sidetalkin' technology from Nokia. How can I be hip if I can't wave my phone around frantically and then hold it like a taco?
effectively switching the phone off when you throw it agains a wall. Or will it just phone the emergency company therapist.
Where is my mind?
Games will be played by moving the phone up, down, right or left, instead of pressing buttons.
:-P
Sounds great, but how can you focus on the screen at the same time?
Could be fun to play Marble Madness this way though.
Connection closed by foreign host.
Many functions will be controlled by movement instead of buttons.
That should read, Many functions could be controlled by movement instead of buttons.
Just because something can be done, does not mean that it will be. Also, if this does eventuate, it does not mean that the public will demand it.
Look at the Nokia ngage. Nobody wants it.
up, up, down, down, left, right,left, right, b, a, start.
-knowles
You take your phone on a roller coaster, and it will dial everyone in your address book
You have a celphone with a Digital Camera, GPS, a 3D motion sensor, Bluetooth, a two-way radio, and a processor to handle all this plus some dumb games. That's just some shielding and fancy coding away from a guidance system, with optical target recognition, GPS, a backup Inertial Navigation System for areas where GPS is not available, celestial navigation system (just roll the camera over), and short- and medium- range radios. Put two on a drone and you'll get basic flight instruments as well. Now UAVs, Cruise Missiles, and Drug-smuggling drones are in the hands of anyone with a Verizon subscription!
I dunno about that...my phone would be seeing my middle finger an awful lot..
And how does it know that it's YOUR finger? What happens if you have your phone out and someone starts pointing at it excitedly. Your phone could go bonkers and call random numbers in Moscow!
I have absolutely no experience with accelerometers, so here goes my n00b question for today:
;D
Would it be possible for the phone's software to adjust the sensitivity of the hardware? Or just interpret it different? As in, would it be possible that, when first used, the telephone would ask you how much 'strength' or acceleration is needed for the activation of this feature? Doesn't seem to difficult to me, and would solve some of the more obvious problems, IMHO.
Not that I would have ANY use for this.
PS. I have the feeling this kind of interface to a telephone could cause a lot of mis-communication between people
- XoloX
This is mouse-gestures where the "cursor" path is comprised of your finger/hand through the air in front of the phone. Maybe I'm jaded, but this doesn't seem all that great. Or new. Or innovative.
It seems to me that it's just an edge-detection algorithm hooked up to a CCD, driving a back-end gesture engine.
Samsung is ahead of their competitors in many areas. Although this may not be a huge selling point at the moment, in the future it might. Their edge will be that they will have experince of producing phones with this tech when their competitor won't.
One application I immediatly think of is navigation of maps. Just move the screen over your virtual map instead of slowly scrolling around with softbuttons, or whatever conventional method there might be on your current phone.
It's bad enough that you can't tell a crazy person from someone on the phone these days, with the bluetooth in-ear headpieces... now they'll be talking loudly to themselves and making wild hand gestures.
Consider the public health implications!
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
In Soviet Russia, phone gives YOU the finger!
John
"For customer support, nod your head. For sales, wiggle your index finger. To speak to a customer service representive, blink 3 times in quick succession. For quality purposes all conversations and gestures may be recorded."
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion, It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed, The hands acqui
"Just use the mind link function, think of the music and it will pick up your vibe."
- Romulox
Causing Chaos Everywhere,
Nik J.
The strange world of a loner, in a populous city, drowning in society
So now all those somatic components I memorised in spells will have a use.
Not a sentence!
Put it in your pocket before you go jogging but forget to switch it off?
By the time you come back you've dialed 5 people in Australia, sent 9 obscene SMSs to every person in your address book, lost 17 games of Tetris and taken 92 full colour pictures of your pocket fluff - all while playing your complete Britney Spears MP3 collection. And the battery's gone flat.
Cool!
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
Well, I suppose it's a new take on it - instead of waving your hands around in front of the the thing, you wave the thing around. But it's still a solution in search of a problem, and even if it finds a problem (oooh, I don't like using the keypad) there are probably better solutions.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
This is not the first motion controlled phone: MyDevice came out 18 months ago.
Did he inhale?
What if you're upset while text messaging. Can you just shake the phone violently and it'll know you meant to say "FUCK YOU ASSHOLE NOOB MOTHERFUCKER, I HATE YOU". Kinda like how software that converts pictures to music will take a picture of porn and crank out 70ies funk.
What are these "Cell phones" you speak of? No seriously...I think all cell phones are the most useless invention ever invented, come on, we read /. , who would ever want to speak to us? I get maybe 1 phone call a month on my real phone, and that's usually a telemarketer. Definitely nothing to see here..
Sign Language! Better start studying/practicing!
Now, even the retarded kids will have someone to clown!
sincerely,
[Zorro]
Smile.
All newer phones have E911. AGPS receivers receive raw GPS signals, then send them over the phone's radio connection to a telco server that does the differential math to determine the phone's location (in 3D space). Counting lag, and the meager amount of even raw data they can accumulate, it's accurate to only a couple of meters or so. But there's also differential data in the cell/PCS signals for augmentation. The newest generation of smartphones, with RISC clocks approaching 1GHz, will probably have the brains to increase precision to better than 1m. Maybe not enough to hold the phone like a gun to control a fragging session. But close enough for other personal location systems as integrated as CallerID.
IBM let their "Engine 18" project for just that on Treos slip almost a year ago. Where's the network APIs and SW interfaces for developers?
--
make install -not war
From the user manual:
To reset all system settings to the factory defaults, and delete all saved numbers in memory, vigorously shake the phone in all directions. Just like an Etch-A-Sketch.
--Joe
"Why are you doing the hokey pokey?"
"I'm trying to call a taxi."
Unlimited airtime!
Blockwars free, multiplayer, tetris like game
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
Insightful? I don't think so.
And no, I didn't use a gesture-based input method the first time ;-)
1/3 of jokes get modded OT. If you get the joke, mod 1 in 3 insightful/interesting/underrated to restore karma balance.
*sigh* If they'd just stop making the gadgets *too small*, there'd be enough room, not just for the pitiful handful of controls we get now, but a *proper* set of controls. I want equipment I can wrap my whole hand around without covering up any inputs, outputs, or controls. I don't *care* that it won't fit in a shirt pocket, since that's already filled by my Day-Timer.
And, I want to see the error rates on these movement recognition thingines. Have you *ever* seen a non-totally-broken keyboard report the wrong keypress? I haven't.
So now the crazy guy on the subway waving his arms around and talking to himself, is only just trying out his new phone?
"Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
In H2G2 he suggested a space ship with controls that were manipulated by movements made above them, but this had the drawback of requiring the operator to almost stop breathing in order to remain tuned to the same radio station....
-- BtB
Tactile feedback can be similated by the phone's vibrator.
There's a game called Mawaru made in Wario (sorry, Japanese only) which has a motion sensor and a vibrator built-in. The result is amazingly good.
I dropped my phone on the stairs while I was dialing. A beautiful girl called me back and wants me to spend the weekend with her on the beach in Mexico. I was so happy that I let the phone drop and it erased her number.
When the first person playing a game punches someone in the head on the train and then gets their phone shoved where the sun don't shine.
RTFA. It uses an accelerometer. The phone itself is used as the "cursor." You make gestrures by moving the whole phone around.
New technology for the sake of being new technology is plain stupid. When will development slow down and actually "finish" or fully develop the technologies we already have today. I would think finger print technology on a cell phone would be much better. 10 fingers - ten auto dials, total security, etc... Good application - full body porn suits, not cell phones. It cost me 10 cents to put in my 2 cents. Who says I'm not giving to society?
An accelometer wouldn't sensibly be used to replace the input style / use context of keypads. (Except perhaps in case of accessibility issues and people with disabilities.)
. pdf
s plays_CHI97/Graspable_Displays_CHI97.html
l l/RocknS.html
Instead, novel input techniques have been researched for quite a while. Check out these few example publications:
http://sandbox.parc.com/want/papers/mui-cacm-2000
http://www.csl.sony.co.jp/person/rekimoto/gwrist/
http://www.csl.sony.co.jp/person/rekimoto/tilt/
http://tangible.media.mit.edu/papers/Graspable_Di
http://research.compaq.com/wrl/projects/RocknScro
I throw the phone on the ground, it shuts off. Whats the big deal ?
Combine a continuous 3D movement sensor small enough to fit in a cell, with two tiny screens, one over each eye, and some software... Looks like we could have lighter smaller virtual reality headsets coming our way.
clockwise circle : home
counterclockwise circle : mother
casual flip near ear : wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend
rub gently in private area : significant other
rub vigorously in private area : most significant other =)
wanking : boss
flip phone up into air : bookie
beat on forehead : customer support
throw on ground and stomp on with hobnail boot : CowboyNeal
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
That guy on the corner waving his hands all over and yelling is not crazy, he's just making a phone call.