New Touchpad Sensor for Cellphone Requires no Power

[Mike Temporale]

http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/tech/200505/kt2005053020260011790.htm

"Atrua Technologies, the U.S.-based high-tech venture, may change the rules of the cell phone game with its new-concept input device using intelligent touch control. In a recent interview with The Korea Times, Atrua vice president Carl Temme predicted premium phones will adopt Atrua Wing, the firm’s touch control device, starting next year. Atrua Wing detects and converts finger movements of users into responsive control capabilities, thus enabling fingerprint recognition or improving the usability of mobile phones through easy mastery of games and other applications. ...Atrua Wing is composed of a touch control sensor and embedded software and the tiny product does not need power since the electricity generated by finger motion is strong enough to operate it."

The Atrua Wing is a small sensor that replaces the joystick/joypad on your mobile device. It acts in much the same way as a touchpad on todays laptops, only much smaller and requires no power - other than your finger. You can see a Flash based mock up/marketing promo of this on the Atrua website. I wonder how long it will be before we see something like this on a Smartphone.

[Mike Temporale]

http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/tech/200505/kt2005053020260011790.htm

"Atrua Technologies, the U.S.-based high-tech venture, may change the rules of the cell phone game with its new-concept input device using intelligent touch control. In a recent interview with The Korea Times, Atrua vice president Carl Temme predicted premium phones will adopt Atrua Wing, the firm’s touch control device, starting next year. Atrua Wing detects and converts finger movements of users into responsive control capabilities, thus enabling fingerprint recognition or improving the usability of mobile phones through easy mastery of games and other applications. ...Atrua Wing is composed of a touch control sensor and embedded software and the tiny product does not need power since the electricity generated by finger motion is strong enough to operate it."

The Atrua Wing is a small sensor that replaces the joystick/joypad on your mobile device. It acts in much the same way as a touchpad on todays laptops, only much smaller and requires no power - other than your finger. You can see a Flash based mock up/marketing promo of this on the Atrua website. I wonder how long it will be before we see something like this on a Smartphone.

[seaflipper]

I had the hx4700 Pocket PC Device with the touchpad on it for a while. There are some things I liked about it and some things that I did not. Then I got a Treo650 and using the 5 way navigation just blew away any type of one handed operation that I could attempt with the hx4700.

Being able to use a 5 way navigator to scroll a contact list one by one without looking at the screen just can't be replaced with some type of touchscreen - at least I don't think it can.

The idea is novel, but on a cell phone or Smartphone I just don't see the touch screen feedback being intuitive enough for this to be applied to a handheld device. I don't think you will HP bring the touchpad out on other devices.