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Tap Tech Brings Touch To Dumb Phones

Posted by timothy on from the now-that's-clever dept.

nk497 writes "A Cambridge-based firm has come up with a way to bring touch interfaces to phones without touchscreens. According to TouchDevice, the system uses the microphone to turn any surface on a handset into a touch-sensitive input panel by analysing sound signatures. 'For example, where icons are displayed on a non-touch screen display, you could tap on there and it would activate the application,' said founder Mike Bradley. TouchDevice believes there are two markets for the technology: firstly to augment input potential in touchcreen smartphones, and secondly as a way of adding touch to 'dumb' displays. The system should be making its way into devices by early next year."

5 of 70 comments (clear)

  1. A boon for the touch phone knock off makers. by Kenja · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Cant wait to see the 10$ iPhony cell phones that use this rather then an actual touch screen.

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    1. Re:A boon for the touch phone knock off makers. by lalena · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Companies (Elo Acustic Pulse Recognition) are already using this technology. They can detect the location of the touch, and they do an OK job with finger drag. They cannot detect when you take your finger off the surface.
      If these limitations are OK, they you get a cheap touch screen that lets you use a scratch resistant glass surface.

    2. Re:A boon for the touch phone knock off makers. by mcgrew · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Why just phones? I'd like this tech on my netbook. I hope it's open source; I'd install it on my netbook - at least if it works better than the speech recognition. But it seems it may have the same drawback, which is any sound confuses the speech engine. I'll bet this won't work anywhere there are percussive sounds; it has to be pretty damned quiet for the speech engine to work.

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  2. Other aplications by He+who+knows · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It seems like this can be aplied to computer moniters quite easilly. I would like a cheap touch screen laptop.

  3. Ramifications by TheCouchPotatoFamine · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Lets think this through, using some out there guessing as to what this is/can do: Microphones on the inside of the case don't require an external sound port, and can actually be conducted onto the plastic case itself. Good: The magnitude of a direct finger tap opposed to an external click or thump filters out error from the environment. Good: Multi touch may not be perfectly possible with two mics but it is using three mics; gives you triangulation, makes simultaneous events seperable. Anyone want to make the case two mics is practical for that? Bad: Can't detect dragging. Good: cell phones are an exception to this, but music players and other digital devices can now be waterproof easily, if induction charging and wifi are used so that a simple gasket can be used to seal it What did I miss?

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