Border Touch Strip
By all accounts, Voice 2.0 was a resounding success. Thanks to Ross Macleod and “Team OCRI” it was jammed packed with great content – and every session was right on schedule!
One thing that struck me was the enthusiasm and energy that the participants demonstrated for telecom innovation. It truly is a rebirth.
On the topic of innovation – the conference keynote, Martin Geddes – spoke that he wished he had a mobile phone with touch strips on both sides of the device that would enable him to easily “surf” contacts. These contacts would be clustered by type and importance. I’ve always wanted a phone like that too… and my colleagues and I at Nortel almost got to build it.
In 1990 I got the idea for the border touch user interface. This consisted of a bit-mapped display framed by touch-sensitive strips. The user interface would take advantage of the border real-estate to provide context-based options… Content in the middle, and navigation and controls on the sides. This concept was so adaptive that it could scale to any size display and replace all other “hard” keys on the device.
In the lab, we also demonstrated that by integrating miniature vibrators into the strips we could simulate texture and motion. If the UI required a scroll mechanism for a list – we could mimic a flywheel spinning. Reaching the bottom of the list, the user could feel a hard stop. We were also able to create tactile “bumps” on the strips. This was very useful at identifying the location of buttons, and reducing the user’s dependence on the display for navigation. For certain telephony features, the user could learn the location of keys… For example, if the user was on a call – they could activate call waiting without having to look at the display.
We eventually filed this patent application in 1998. In 2002, US patent #6,369,803 (www.uspto.gov) was granted for the “Active Edge User Interface”. The abstract reads:
“An active edge user interface includes dynamically configurable flexible touch areas positioned near the perimeter of a display to support interactive communication between a user and a user environment for flexible active touch areas surrounding a display. The interface allows for multiple levels of sensitivity, texture, key travel, and varying widths of active touch areas based on the user environment.”
This idea was later incorporated into a product prototype for World Com. Unfortunately, it was never built.
But the idea is alive. Recently, this patent has been referred by numerous companies including Nokia, Seimens, Seiko-Epson, Philips, 3M, NEC, and Lenovo. Is somebody working on a touch strip mobile? I hope so!
Now that’s a great idea! that could really change the way people interact with their cells. Put me on the beta trial list.