While we were lazying our way through the Christmas break, it seems the U.S. Patent Office were doing quite the opposite. They revealed this interesting new patent application from Apple called Swipe Gestures for Touch Screen Keyboards. Apple suggests the use of swipe gestures to be used on top of the iPhone’s on screen keyboard in order to provide the user with quick access to common keys.
Here’s a quoted example of how this new patent will be used practically…
For example, erasing and basic punctuation insertion, directional swipes (also referred to herein as “swipe gestures”) over the alphabetic keys can be used as an alternative to striking certain keys. Because the Space and Backspace keys are quite frequently used, they are logical candidates for the rightward and leftward swipes, respectively. Leftward and rightward swipes intuitively match the cursor travel caused by these symbols. Following this cursor movement analogy, the Enter/Return may be invoked by a downward swipe, and a Shift/Caps may be invoked by an upward swipe. Alternatively, as the Enter and Shift functions may be less frequently invoked, these may be substituted for other functions as well. One alternative mapping for the upward swipe, for example, could be to activate an alternative numeric and punctuation keypad or a particular punctuation symbol like an apostrophe or period.
While no actual realistic product has actually come up, you will probably be able to imagine that it’s much like Apple’s latest multi touch enabled MacBooks but I would say it sounds more suited for the advanced users and also those who will appreciate quick access shortcuts. Let’s face it, you’re not going to find an old granny that will remember precisely which combination of strokes to go for to launch certain application.
Are you one of those people who have got a few lava lamps lying around at home pointlessly just because they look abit strange and fun to stare at? The New York City based company Gotham Wave Games has recently launched an application for the iPhone that turns the device into the groovy 1960s tabletop icon lava lamp. iLava will let you interact with the virtual blobs of hot wax by allowing you to push the lava around using iPhone’s touchscreen, you can also push the blobs together and merge them or pull them apart – but like the real lava lamps, that’s about all it does! So if you’ve got an extra $0.99 to spare, then there you go!
After having received our LG Renoir KC910 a couple of days ago, it’s time to share with you guys what we felt about the new LG flagship. It was truly a joy to have around, especially that high spec camera which proved to live up to our expectations. For those that don’t yet know much about the Renoir,
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The handwriting calculator application featured below is a showcase of Nokia’s new handwriting recognition technology being tested out at Nokia Beta Labs. It allows you to calculate handwritten math expressions using touchscreen Nokia device and featured in this video is the N800.
Out of all the latest Sony Ericsson concept phones (unofficial by the way) featured below, the P905 has to be my favourite, not just because it is the only one out of the lot that has Google Android but just look at it! J. Havarlant from Sony-Ericsson-CZ is the designer behind the sexy Sony Ericsson concept phones below. His slew of Sony Ericsson concept designs for this Christmas includes some exciting additions to the T, P and W series.
The T903 Rugya. This one is a sleek slider with red highlights. It sports a 8.1- megapixel camera and is inspired by the gorgeous Rugya car. The P912 boasts of a single large screen with only two buttons on the face. What makes the touchscreen P905 very interesting is that it proposes an Android platform, looks like a smooth iPhone but hosts a side-slider QWERTY keyboard.
Besides a huge touchscreen, there is nothing much to write about the SE P902 Retro. However the musically inclined will appreciate the W905, which is a Walkman phone. Sporting a large Slider screen, it also has a 5.0-megapixel camera and quick easy-access buttons on the side.
[via DesignLaunches, Techeblog]
Cowon or full name Cowon Systems, Inc. you may or may not have heard of here in the UK since its primarily a company based in Asia. The South Korean electronics company which has been established since 1995, with initial focus mainly on software and later on portable digital media players has now released its latest creation, the Cowon S9 Cureve.
The S9 is a 3.3-inch media player that features an AMOLED capacitive touch panel display which spreads 16 million colors across 480 x 272 pixels. Within this beautiful handheld player is a 500MHz dual-core CPU, T-DMB digital television tuner, Bluetooth, FM radio, TV-out and G-Sensor accelerometer. What’s also quite impressive is nearly two days (40 hours) of music playback from a single charge.
This was under much speculation about a month ago but it isn’t anymore. It’s called the OPhone, strange but it is simply China’s version of an open mobile system, in other words – chinese version of the Google Android. If you remember, yes it was China Mobile’s decision not to bring the Google Android G1 to China but develop its own.
The OPhone’s Android platform will have added support and apps for TD-SCDMA which is China’s own home grown 3G network. In addition to this, the OPhone will feature a 5.0-megapixel camera, microSD card slot, touchscreen display and bluetooth connectivity, not entirely sure whether it will be equipped with WiFi at this point.
Pricing has not yet been announced.
