[gui-talk] Fwd: Implications for accessibility -- Nokia perfects the clicky tactile touchscreen.

[Steve Pattison]

 From:    John Lee john at lee-au.net
 To:      Vip-l list vip-l at freelists.org

Hi All,

  I believe that there will be significant accessibility spin-offs from the
development by Nokia perfecting the clicky tactile touchscreen, for all
mobile devices not just Nokia.  I have copied the article on this
development below.
***** Beginning of Article
Nokia perfects the clicky tactile touchscreen - iPhone gnashes teeth, swears
revenge

It's taken them 10 years but Nokia boffins have finally perfected a 'touch
feedback' touchscreen. Don't be fooled by simple vibrational imitations
folks, this is the real McCoy - you press a key on the screen, and it clicks
under your finger with exactly the same sort of fingertip feedback as if
you'd pressed a conventional keyboard key. Roope Takala, Senior Program
Manager at Nokia's research labs gave me a demo of the technology in Finland
the other day on a hacked N770 Internet tablet. 

"The basic technology is not that difficult," he explained, "We inserted two
small piezo sensor pads under the screen and engineered in a 0.1mm movement
in the screen itself. What's taken the time has been fine tuning the
movement and response to mimic exactly the sensation of pressing a real
key."

The problem in perfecting the tech - codenamed Haptikos, meaning 'to touch'
- lies in how our fingers experience a key press. We actually feel two
movements, in and out, and these movements and the associated audio have to
be perfectly attuned to the speed and responsiveness of a real keyboard. In
use, the touch feedback on the demo device was near on perfect. Each press
of a key returned a clunky click and tactile snap on the touchscreen, which
made typing feel incredibly responsive and very usable on the smooth screen
surface. In fact it was hard to remember that you were using a touchscreen
keyboard.

"Funnily enough, although you think you're typing faster than normal because
of the feedback, in actual fact you're not," said Takala, "There's just some
sort of mental satisfaction that comes from typing with a tactile response."

The new Haptikos technology will apparently be shipped with the upcoming
Nokia S60 Touch phone that has been shown off at recent demos, and the team
is busy working on the next challenge, which is to provide exact tactile
replicas for scrolling and draw/paint programs. The problem is that while we
expect and need ultra fast responses for keyboard use, navigation and things
like drag scrolling require a different, slower response map, which is
another hurdle for the engineers to overcome.

"What's nice is that people who are new to handheld devices don't even
notice this technology at first," says Takala with a smile. "But they really
miss it if you take it away from them once they've experienced it. It's kind
of addictive."

One thing I can say is that this is the first technology I've seen and
played with which could genuinely revolutionise the use of handheld devices
in general. The ability to touch type at reasonable speeds on a touchscreen
is something which every phone, PDA and handheld computer manufacturer would
give their right arm for, and it looks as though the technology is about to
reach the marketplace with a bang. I can't wait.

**** End of Article

The web link for this article is: 

http://www.redferret.net/?p=9533 

Regards,
John Lee

Regards Steve
Email:  srp at internode.on.net
MSN Messenger:  internetuser383 at hotmail.com
Skype:  steve1963
Twitter:  steve9782