Motorola Multitouch Investment Could Herald Buttonless Smartphone
Interesting investment news from Motorola today. The company’s investment arm, Motorola Ventures, has put some money into Sensitive Object, a French start-up that has developed haptic technology that can transform almost any surface into a multitouch interface.
As I understand it, Sensitive Object’s “Anywhere MultiTouch” platform uses acoustic touch recognition to capture the audio vibrations that occur when an object is tapped or swiped and uses them to relay user input for information and control. It can be applied to a variety of materials–metal, glass, plastic etc.–rendering them touch-sensitive. Motorola (MOT) could obviously put this to good use, especially helping the company differentiate its touch smartphones from those of its rivals.
Imagine how infuriating it would be for Steve Jobs if Motorola, not Apple (AAPL), was first with an entirely button-free smartphone?
Comments
Sensitive Object's technology is no more capable of making a button-free smartphone than the capacitive sensing technology in existing phones. Both sensing technologies consume power, a simple mechanical button does not. Both sensing technologies would be prone to accidental turn on in a purse or pocket, another benefit of using a mechanical pushbutton to turn the device on.
The capacitive touch technology used in current phones is well proven and capable of multi-touch. If there is ANY advantage to the acoustic touch technique, it's that it can be retrofit to existing surfaces, as it's place only along the edge. Capacitive sensing requires that the sensing surface be backed by a conductive matrix. While that matrix may be inexpensive, its cost is proportional to surface area. This may give some advantage to acoustic technologies (which have been around for decades) in large surface applications.
Absent any ability to differentiate its software from other Android based phones, Motorola (and others) are forced to differentiate through hardware.
Posted by bsimpsen at December 3rd, 2009 at 5:11 pmInteresting. I've heard the technology can be applied to an entire smartphone — front, back, sides, etc.. Will dig a bit further.
Posted by JohnPaczkowski at December 3rd, 2009 at 7:45 pmLook at Apple's Magic Mouse to see capacitive multi-touch technology ALREADY applied to a product's surface.
Sensitive Objects has a very difficult technological challenge ahead of it to implement anything approaching the sophistication of capacitive multi-touch technology.
Fingerworks was ahead of where Sensitive Objects is now when they were quietly acquired by Apple in 2005.
For a company that has abandoned software innovation to Google and placed it's bets on differentiating itself from the myriad other Android purveyors solely through hardware, this seems like a poorly researched throw of the dice. Hopefully they threw a cheap pair.
Posted by bsimpsen at December 3rd, 2009 at 9:32 pmThe FingerWorks stuff is amazing. They had a PC keyboard with no buttons.
> Imagine how infuriating it would be for Steve Jobs
> if Motorola, not Apple (AAPL), was first with an
> entirely button-free smartphone?
Next day headline: “Apple buys Nokia.”
Posted by Fred Hamranhansenhansen at December 4th, 2009 at 1:58 amThey put money in because it is the future tehnologies
Posted by masini at January 7th, 2010 at 3:31 pmIPhone will be the leader on the market for the next 10 years for sure
Posted by Harley Davidson Bedding at March 10th, 2010 at 11:03 am