雙語新聞:觸摸科技:未來一切皆有可能

Technology Report: The Future Of Touch

For mobile touch technology, it's only the beginning.

Apple Inc.'s iPhone revolutionized the mobile phone with easy-to-use touch-screen technology that allows users to surf the Web, tap out messages or control any number of inventive applications. But the iPhone and the touch-screen handsets every major phone maker has since come out with have only scratched the surface of the potential of touch.

The next generation of touch technology, now in development, promises to be even more intuitive and user-friendly. 'All the work is on improving the speed of devices, the reliability and how they interact with humans,' says Chris Ard, director of marketing for touch technology at semiconductor maker Atmel Corp., based in San Jose, Calif.

Among the highlights: Developers are working on new applications for 'multitouch' screens, like those on the iPhone, the GD900 from LG Electronics Inc., due for release in the U.K. imminently, and others soon to come, including Palm Inc.'s Pre. These screens can process commands the user gives with more than one finger, which broadens the possibilities for applications. Other developers are working on advances in 'haptic' feedback -- vibrations and other physical sensations that are now used, for instance, to let a Gamer know she's reached a new level, but that can also be used to communicate emotions and may soon give a touch-screen keyboard the feel of a physical keyboard. And for those who still prefer to work with keys on their phones, even some traditional keyboards will perform certain functions in response to touch commands, like a finger run lightly across the keys.

When the iPhone was introduced in 2007, its multitouch capability was among its most eye-catching features. Apple Chairman Steve Jobs demonstrated how photos could be resized simply with a pinching or expanding gesture using a thumb and a finger on the screen.

Software developers set to work on multitouch applications. Some, for instance, allow users to play virtual musical instruments on the phone. But multitouch developers have largely focused on games.

Last month, France's Gameloft SA released a Terminator Salvation game for the iPhone to coincide with the release of the movie with the same title. The game makes use of half-circle, or arc, gestures on both sides of the screen to control the characters' movements and view -- a refinement of the slide gestures that many games use to move characters through their environment.

The game is designed for users to control characters with two thumbs, as they would in traditional nonmobile games. Gameloft says that this takes into account the natural rotation of the thumb bone to achieve the most comfortable and intuitive movements by the user.

Another innovator in multitouch games, Illusion Labs AB, is planning a new release for the fall. The Swedish company is the creator of Sway, in which the user's thumbs control the swinging movements of a monkey-like character, and TouchGrind, in which two fingers of one hand direct the motion of a skateboard.

Haptic technology already has many nonmobile applications. In videogames, for instance, it can give gamers the sensation of actually steering a car they're controlling on the screen. In medical training, it can make procedures like endoscopy performed on a simulator feel real, so that medical personnel can develop a better sense of how to perform them.

The use of haptics in mobile phones is still in its infancy, with Samsung Electronics Co. leading the way. Its Omnia phone, for example, vibrates to confirm each touch of the screen, and a vibration that shudders to a stop indicates that a call has been dropped.

But the wider deployment of haptic-enabled phones will open the door to new applications.

Immersion Corp., a haptics developer based in San Jose, Calif., says that in the next nine months three mobile carriers will be launching applications it created that allow users to communicate emotions nonverbally. For example, frustration can be communicated by shaking the phone, which will create a vibration that will be felt by the other party. That person might then choose to respond with what the developers call a 'love tap' -- a rhythmic tapping on the phone that will produce a heartbeat-like series of vibrations on the other party's phone.

Immersion's general manager of touch business, Craig Vachon, says the next step is developing a phone that can deliver a physical sensation based on the position of a finger on a touch screen. One application would be a touch-screen keyboard that feels like a traditional keyboard, so that users could more easily distinguish exactly where each key begins and ends. The idea would be to help users avoid errant taps on the screen and the resulting garbled messages.

'The technology is such that we could blindfold you and you would be able to feel the demarcation between the keys of a keypad, on a completely flat touch screen,' Mr. Vachon says. The technology is being tested in handsets now and should be made available to consumers sometime in the next 12 months, he says.
For now, at least, many mobile users prefer the accuracy of a physical keyboard rather than a touch screen. A new technology is being designed to allow the best of both worlds: a keyboard that can also respond to touch commands.

The keyboard, being developed by Berlin-based Tech21 Sensor GmbH, responds normally when a letter or number is pressed. But a user could, say, scroll down a Web page by running a finger lightly across the keyboard; pressing a little harder might be the command to scroll faster or zoom in on a page. The technology is expected to start being deployed in mobile phones in 2010 or 2011.

'We want to provide any object with keys or a keypad with smarter keys,' says Tech21 Chairman Christian Lindholm.

Ms. Sandler is a reporter for Dow Jones Newswires in London. She can be reached at .

Kathy Sandler

就移動觸摸科技而言，現在還只是剛剛開始。

蘋果公司(Apple Inc.)的iPhone無疑是移動電話行業的革命性產品，其便於使用的觸摸屏技術可以讓用戶瀏覽網絡，敲打短信息或者操控任何數量的新潁應用軟件。但是，iPhone以及之後任何主要移動電話製造商推出的觸摸屏手機都只是揭開了具有無限可能的觸摸科技的冰山一角而已。

目前正在開發當中的下一代觸摸屏科技承諾將爲用戶帶來更加直觀和友好的體驗。位於加利福利亞洲聖何塞的半導體制造商Atmel Corp.的觸摸科技營銷總監克里斯•阿德(Chris Ard)表示，所有的工作都集中在改進設備的速度、可靠性以及它們如何與人類互動方面。

其中，尤其引人矚目的是，開發人員正在研製針對“多觸摸”屏幕的應用軟件，如iPhone、以及LG電子很快將在英國推出的GD900、還有Palm Inc.最近推出的Pre等等所使用的觸摸屏。這些屏幕可疑處理用戶多個手指下達的要求，從而拓寬了應用軟件的可能性。其它開發人員則在攻克“虛擬觸覺”反饋技術──比如說，用來讓遊戲玩家知道自己跳升一級的震動及其它物體感官功能，同時也可以用來溝通感情，甚至很快讓觸摸鍵盤具備物體鍵盤的感覺。對於那些仍然青睞使用手機按鍵的用戶，甚至一些傳統按鍵也將能夠響應部分觸摸指令，如一個手指輕輕滑過按鍵。

摸遊戲

當iPhone於2007年推出的時候，多觸摸功能是其最大的賣點之一。蘋果電腦董事長史蒂夫•喬布斯(Steve Jobs)演示了照片如何通過一個手指在觸摸屏上的擠壓或者擴大手勢被縮小或者放大。

軟件開發人員着手開發多觸摸應用軟件。比如說，一些可以讓用戶在手機上演奏虛擬樂器。但是，多觸摸技術的開發人員大體上更多地關注遊戲。

上個月，法國的Gameloft SA在電影《魔鬼終結者：未來救贖》上映的同時，發佈了同名的iPhone手機遊戲。該遊戲利用在屏幕兩邊的半圓、弧形邊緣，來控制遊戲人物的動作和視角，比起許多遊戲所使用的以滑動手勢移動人物在遊戲場景當中的位置，其設計更爲精細。

該遊戲旨在讓用戶以兩個大拇指控制遊戲人物，就像遊戲玩家在操作傳統的非手機遊戲的時候一樣。Gameloft表示，這種技術考慮到拇指關節的自然轉動，用戶因此可以實現最爲舒適和直觀的移動。

另外一家在多觸摸遊戲領域的創新者Illusion Labs AB計劃在今年秋季推出一款新遊戲。這家瑞典公司是Sway和TouchGrind遊戲的創造者。在Sway中，用戶可以用拇指控制象猴子一樣的遊戲人物的動作；而在TouchGrind中，用戶可以利用一隻手上的兩個手指控制滑雪板的移動。

觸覺技術在非手機領域已經得到廣泛運用。比如說，在視頻遊戲當中，它可以讓遊戲玩家感到自己好像真地在駕駛他們所控制的屏幕上的賽車。在醫療培訓當中，它可以讓在模擬器上操作的內窺鏡檢查法等程序感覺異常真實，醫療人員從而可以更好地瞭解如何使用這些器材。

虛擬觸覺技術在手機方面的使用仍然處於萌芽階段，三星電子(Samsung Electronics Co.)是這方面的領先者。比如說，其Omnia手機在用戶觸 屏幕後會產生振動，而漸漸停止的振動則表明來電被取消。

不過，採用虛擬觸覺技術手機更爲廣泛的運用將爲新興的應用軟件開闢全新的天地。

加州聖何塞的虛擬觸覺技術開發商Immersion Corp.表示，未來九個月份，三家移動運營商將推出其開發的應用軟件，用戶可以以非語言的形式溝通感情。比如說，如果用戶感到沮喪，他可以通過搖動手機，對方的手機即會感到震動。對方可能進而選擇開發商所稱的“愛的輕拍”(love tap)表達安慰之情。這是一種有韻律的輕拍，它會讓對方的手機產生象心跳一樣的系列震動。

Immersion負責觸摸業務的總經理克雷格•瓦喬(Craig Vachon)表示，下一步將使開發可以基於手指在觸摸屏上的位置傳遞物理感觀的手機。其應用領域之一就是讓觸摸屏鍵盤的使用體驗更像是傳統物理鍵盤，用戶因而可以更加容易地區分按鍵在哪裏開始和結束。其設計理念在於幫助用戶避免屏幕觸摸的失誤，以及由之產生的混淆信息。

瓦喬先生表示，通過這項技術，即便我們蒙上你的眼睛，你也能感覺得到按鍵的具體位置，即便是在一個完全平坦的觸摸屏上。他說，目前該技術正在手機上進行測試，未來12個月內應能與消費者見面。

摸鍵盤

至少在目前來看，許多手機用戶仍然偏愛物理鍵盤的準確性，而不是觸摸屏。開發人員正在設計一項可以兼顧這兩種需求的新技術：一個可以同時迴應觸摸指令的物理鍵盤。

柏林的Tech21 Sensor GmbH即在研製這種鍵盤。當用戶按下一個字母或者數字的時候，它可以正常回應。但是，用戶也可以通過手指上下觸摸鍵盤來滑動網頁；如果按得稍重一點，可能就是代表滑動地更快一些或者放大頁面的意思。這項技術預計將於2010年或者2011年運用在手機上。

Tech21董事長克里斯汀•林德海姆(Christian Lindholm)表示，我們希望爲任何帶有按鍵或鍵盤的設備提供更加智能的按鍵。

Kathy Sandler