sick new phone software, hope it works :)

Miscellaneous Topics
#1

I saw this article on engadget and thought u guys may find it interesting.

basically it is a software that uses your phones mic to measure acoustics from hitting different parts of your cell phone screen, and long story short, it can turn a regular phone into touch screen :slight_smile:

I totally hope this works!!!

#2

That’s fairly nifty. It seems unlikely that it won’t suffer from the same issues that the Clapper had - if your dog barks twice it turns your lights off. How would this work on a train or a plane or any other environment with any ambient noise whatsoever? And what if you cough while you’re playing? Will that make it go crazy?

#3

Or if a mic gets a slight bit of dirt,scum, scratches on the screen like all phones get over time it would slightly change the sound.

But its a interesting idea and hope it works…

#4

Not to mention everbody’s fingers are different, so sound different too.
TBH I doubt it works as well as you’d hope. I can imagine it might pick up approximately how far you tapped from the mic, but since there’s only one mic in a phone I don’t think it can really measure if you tap left or right. I really don’t expect any kind of accuracy at all from it.
Perhaps it’s even just limited to reacting to message boxes; “Tap the screen to continue” -> you tap anywhere on the phone -> program continues

#5

Well if phones are going to officially support it they might do 2 or 4 mics… That will be cheaper than a touch screen and work a lot better… Anyway I’ll make up my mind when I see a demo…

#6

@ ericd:

for the different fingers thing, there is no doubt gunna be a calibration sort of thing.

also, it wouldnt need more than one mic, because different parts of the phone have different densities due to chips, memory cards, etc, etc.
so each spot on the phone will have a different vibration.

#7

fair enough, but I still think it’s most likely just a cost reducing tech which sacrifices responsiveness and precision.
But who knows it works just as well as a real touch screen, we’ll see…

#8

Well the way they read multi-touch these days is pretty odd, if you think about it. I never would have expected that they’d measure touch with IR cameras, which is basically what the iPhone does (I think). Using sound is just another semi-oddball idea that very well could work.

#9

Hm yes, perhaps it could work better than I initially figured.

However this ‘InputDynamics’ idea sounds really similar to ‘Acoustic pulse recognition’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchscreen)
A downside of that technology is that it can only detect touch events that make a sound (tapping, and even dragging).
What it can’t detect is a motionless finger on the screen, and also detecting the finger releasing the screen is problematic (no ‘touch & hold’). Seems a limiting factor, especially for games, since an on-screen dpad probably won’t work well on it (if at all).

#10

I think the software was intended for a qwerty keyboard, so their shouldnt be too many problems about holding in htat aspect.

but you right, there are some flaws