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New Japanese Mobile Phones Detect Motion

Posted by Zonk on from the virtual-/wave dept.

GreenTea writes "Some of the latest mobile phones in Japan come with motion sensors that let users detect motion or play action games like those on the Nintendo Wii console. The D904i from NTT DoCoMo, Japan's top mobile carrier, contains a tiny motion sensor that detects shaking and tilting, company spokesman Nobuyuki Hatanaka said. 'The software supports three main types of motion: shake, rock and roll. Shake can be used for actions such as rolling dice and shuffling MP3 decks. Rock interprets right, left, up and down gestures to generate traditional cursor-style user input commands. Roll offers joystick control by responding to tilting motions used in navigating games, maps or Web pages.'"

5 of 67 comments (clear)

  1. Its about time! by Sloan47 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Its about time! The wii limited us to throwing the remote into the TV. Now the playing field is much more open!

  2. It would be a nice safety feature.... by ptbarnett · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Maybe they can program the phone to detect when the user is driving a vehicle and disable the phone.

    1. Re:It would be a nice safety feature.... by alienmole · · Score: 5, Funny

      Or what if you're about to crash into the car in front of you and you want to call them to warn them?

  3. Re:Mary & Joseph by alienmole · · Score: 3, Funny

    Who writes this shit? Did the writer actually spend two seconds imagining a player swinging the cell phone like a tennis racket or golf club?
    No, but I'm guessing you did, and now you're working through the disillusionment. Hang in there bro, you'll be able to swing your cellphone once they perfect the cellphone-mounted motion-stabilized holographic projector!
  4. Motion-sensitive phones are old news in Japan by rh2600 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    My Vodafone/SoftBank v603sh had this over a year ago, and it was a 1 yen phone! Motion Sensor for Golf and some Sega FPS, Microphone for Singstar Clone, Analog TV/FM with flip screen for widescreen, 2MP camera with Optical Zoom...ahhh loved that little phone.. pity I moved back to NZ ;) You could even record off TV to the SD card on the phone - it supported EPG over data so it had Tivo-esque functionality! http://mb.softbank.jp/mb/product/2G/model/v_603sh/