Synaptics came to the Consumer Electronics Show to show off Fuse, a new way to control a cell phone through the combination of touchscreens, force feedback, tilting, and 3-D graphics. It also showed off Scrybe, a new set of gestures that you can use to make things happen on your computer quickly and easily.
Apple got us all used to the touchscreen swipe and the tilting control mechanisms with the launch of the iPhone. But now it’s time to move beyond that, said Andrew Hsu, technology strategist at the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company, which makes touch pads, touch screens and other sensors.
With Fuse, you can control a phone with a number of different methods, making it much easier to handle a lot of functions with just one hand. You can swipe across the multitouch screen. You can squeeze the side sensors to make balls come out of the middle of the phone, and the graphics show you the effect of squeezing the sides. Tilting lets you roll the balls in different directions. And swiping your finger across the back of the phone also lets you control things. This is what Synaptics calls a “multi-modal interface.”
Moving beyond the touchscreen, Synaptics is introducing a new user interface for mobile phones dubbed Fuse — combining touch, force feedback, 3-D graphics, and grip and proximity sensing.
Fuse is a result of collaboration between Synaptics and four partners: TheAlloy, The Astonishing Tribe (TAT), Immersion, and Texas Instruments. TheAlloy led the user experience and overall product design efforts. TAT enabled the effective 3-D environment and helped with the user interface. Immersion made possible the tactile feedback. TI’s OMAP 3630 processor provided the processing platform to handle things like graphics and imaging features. Synaptics, meanwhile, used its ClearPad, NavPoint, and TouchButtons sensor electronics in the design.
Scrybe, meanwhile, is a collection of finger gestures that you can use as short cuts to get things done with your computer. It’s akin to fingerpainting. First, you tap on the touch pad to get a touch canvas on the computer’s touch screen. Then you can use your fingers to draw gestures to control functions on the computer. You can, for instance, draw an “@” symbol on the screen to launch your email. It’s another cool way that you can use simple gestures to replace lots of keystrokes. These aren’t products per se, but expect them to inspire the creation of a whole new generation of cool phones, computers and other gadgets. I wouldn’t be surprised to see something like Scrybe on Apple’s upcoming tablet, or on all of the other tablets that were displayed at CES.
Check out the video with took at CES with the Synaptics crew.
Synaptics Fuse and Scrybe — new ways to control phones/PCs from Dean Takahashi on Vimeo.
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