Rumours: Nokia N9 “Nokia is using a patented, new technology, not seen in any other device in the market.”
Janimatik tips us another juicy bit of rumours spread by mr zehjotkah again. Stirring up the maemo discussion boards he writes:
Hey guys (and girls?)!
Just thought I should give you a heads up.
You’ll love the consumer device even without keyboard. Nokia is using a patented, new technology, not seen in any other device in the market.
Now there’s already been some speculation that Nokia were doing something new interface wise with MeeGo. Back in December there was of course Marko Ahtisaari speaking about new ways that you can interact without keeping your head trapped onto the screen.
I think we’re missing a trick. Need to bring people’s head back up, maintain eye contact with better one handed use, better ways to use devices without them commanding our full attention
The MeeGo teaser was all about gestures. Nokia Conversations started talking about Nokia Innovations again talking about gestures.
So one of the things that our engineers are up to is making technology disappear. How we then control our devices is the tricky part: with possibilities like gestural control, contextual choices and – who knows? – thought projection – all up for possible consideration.”
Rumours re-emerged that Nokia might be doing something again with touchless gestures (they applied for a patent for that back in 2008).
Talk.Maemo.Org has also been discussing the possiblity of Neonode’s zForce optical touch screen:
- It does not require a glass overlay. This translates to better light transmission and subsequently better display quality.
- It does not require any force. With a resistive display, you need to press the surface with some amount of force before any feedback is received.
- It supports interactions using a finger, a stylus, or even a gloved hand. Most capacitive touch screens cannot function when you use a stylus or a gloved hand.
- Since it leaves the e-ink display as is, all the benefits associated with an e-ink display is retained.
Something else of discussion: Over on the MeeGo Hardware Pages the following are listed:
| 26 |
#define PRODUCT_SU18_STR "SU-18" /**< 770 */ |
| 27 |
#define PRODUCT_RX34_STR "RX-34" /**< N800 */ |
| 28 |
#define PRODUCT_RX44_STR "RX-44" /**< N810 */ |
| 29 |
#define PRODUCT_RX48_STR "RX-48" /**< N810 WiMAX Edition */ |
| 30 |
#define PRODUCT_RX51_STR "RX-51" /**< N900 */ |
| 31 |
#define PRODUCT_RX71_STR "RX-71" /**< Development board */ |
| 32 |
#define PRODUCT_RM680_STR "RM-680" /**< ??? */ |
| 33 |
#define PRODUCT_RM690_STR "RM-690" /**< ??? */ |
| 34 |
#define PRODUCT_RM696_STR "RM-696" /**< ??? */ |
| 35 |
#define PRODUCT_RM716_STR "RM-716" /**< ??? */ |
The RM-680 is the keyboarded Nokia N9/N950. It passed FCC a few weeks ago. The RM-696 is the rumoured keyboardless N9, lankku.
What is the RM-690 and RM-716? I see they’ve been discussed many months ago already in our comments, but still no clue as to what they are except that they are Maemo/MeeGo related.
Update: Back to the touch screen thing – I can’t believe I forgot this as this was the reason I wanted to write about this story. As Al Pavangkanan points out, what if it’s Nokia’s Haptikos feedback technology? This makes the most sense out of all the possible new technologies since this DOES allow people to bring their heads back up (whereas the other two air touch and zForce don’t).
Haptikos basically gives your touch screen real button like feel. One of the pros of physical QWERTY/Keypads is the ability to type without looking at the screen. Your fingers will remember where keys are based on relative position of other keys – something you can’t really easily do on FLAT touch screens. Not just “vibrations” which is haptic feedback. But a realistic sensation of having pressed a real button (not too unlike electrotactile feedback).
“The basic technology is not that difficult…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”
Back in 2008, Gizmo ran with the title, “Nokia’s Haptikos Technology Makes Physical Keyboards Obsolete, Hopefully”
I’m not sure how fine that could be, but if it could mimic dots, it might even allow for Braille. That’s something Nokia tried to tackle before.
About the Author (Author Profile)
Hey, thanks for reading my post. My name is Jay and I'm a medical student at the University of Manchester. When I can, I blog here at mynokiablog.com and tweet now and again @jaymontano. We also have a twitter and facebook accounts @mynokiablog and facebook.com/MyNokiaBlog. Contact us at tips(@)mynokiablog.com or email me directly on jay[at]mynokiablog.comSubscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
Comments (38)
Trackback URL | Comments RSS Feed
Sites That Link to this Post
- Nokia N9 to Use Touchless Gesture Technology? | May 30, 2011
- Nokia N9 to Use Touchless Gesture Technology? | Nokia Site | May 30, 2011
- Nokia N9 Could Feature Haptikos Virtual Keyboard, Maybe Gesture Control? | GSM Dome - Mobile Phone News | May 30, 2011
- Szilárd-Erwin Szogyényi | May 31, 2011
I can already hear Steve wheeping.
I’ve always heard that
@Rock…Which Steve?
Weeping tears of joy. He will beat nokia to it with iphone 6 and ifans will jizz in their pants.
Assuming the US economy doesn’t collapse. Haha.
he’ll bring it after Nokia and Iphone fans will think its brand new ground breaking tech, like a camera on the front!
Could this finally be the haptikos technology we saw so long ago?
That’s possibly the most likely one. I was thinking that when I first saw the tip and missed it when I came around to writing the post. That would make most sense for the “head up” approach as you can “feel” the touch screen as actual “buttons”. All the other gesture swishy crap still requires you to look down.
is this something comparable to blackberry s surepress technology? I think this also provides tactile feedback over piezo elements…Rim won t use this technology in the storm 3 any more…
Doesn’t seem like it’s the same approach that BB is using in its Storms. From the patents its a way more advanced technology with which you can change haptics of parts of the display. And you can somehow feel buttons. We’ll see. It would perfectly fit in the sum of hint’s different Nokia people gave us. But who knows.
I’m just a bit concerned about the durability of the touchscreen. I like the tough Gorilla glass screen of the N8. I don’t want the N9/N950/Nwhatever to be more sensitive to scratches…
I think the same way you do about the durability of such a display: BB had some severe quality issues concerning the first Storm 2 where the touchsscreen itself gave in to pressure. The second Storm 2 had an immovable capacitive touchscreen – there weren´t such issues…but for Storm 3 they won´t consider surepress.
I don´t see any problem with that new technique and gorilla glass. We´ll see…
I´m very optimistic about this meego device in particular BUT not so optimistic about meego´s future at Nokia…
could this be the pressure touchscreen?
i have to warn you that you guys are increasing my expectations from the meego/maemo device…sometimes it is the 720p screen res, sometimes a gorgeous design, and now innovative ways to interact…each night i go to sleep giving shape to whatever might bring all these together…i don’t know how i will manage till the end of the year..i might not be satisfied with anything less…seriously guys, i pray it lives up to the hype.
Could be something as simple as the materials used too..
So could it be this one?
Nokia files for patent for ‘Diamond’-Coated Mobile Phones:
http://www.esato.com/news/article.php/id=1424
And when will they launch it? After Samsung brings its super duper AMOLED plus and Galaxy S 3?
Give something to bite, not just to chew!
Nokia have been on somethnig about magic number 18. Maybe we’ll see Harmattan/N9/N950 in 2018?
* something
** on Twitter
It may well be 18th June 2011.
i hope it’s all true!
HeHe you know what would be really Awesome , N9 outsells all the wp7 mango devices Nokia releases zis year !xD
I still hope that this will happen – just imagine:
all former/current symbian fans, waiting for the ultimate device, buying the N9/N950…
Outselling WinPhone…imagine the news headlines…
I for my part will contribute to that and buy the meego device!
Nokia can hold as many patents as it wants but it doesn’t mean shit unless they actually release it. Apple’s M.O. is to take other people’s ideas and con the public into thinking they were the ones to innovate. If Nokia wants to prove to the public that it is a leader in mobile tech, they need to release this shit before anyone else!
@Hypnopottamus
I agree with you. Nokia need to release or atleast announce the n9 or n950 very fast and quick. Nokia need to make a teaser video of this n9/n950 to the public media. Just like samsung did with samsung galaxy S II. Shit! Wake up Nokia and release this damn phone to the public fast..
i swear this would be my next phone even if it costs 500$ +
My guess the buttons or other elements on the screen can be felt when sliding your finger on it. Maybe a different “state” when pressed also.
It’s interesting, but didn’t RIM try something similar with a pressable screen on the Blackberry Storm?
It sounded great in theory, but when you actually used the Storm (my ex-girlfriend had one), it was such a pain in the backside to use that you wanted to toss the thing out the window.
If I recall correctly, the blackberry storm’s screen moved entirely. (Not too good with BB models). You might as well just have had vibration feedback.
You still couldn’t differentiate one keyboard key from another. Here, you can. Or in theory.
The Storm’s other problem was that the pressing was both unintuitive and inconsistent: some actions, like the typing on the keyboard, required presses, while others didn’t, depending on the particular application, so you never knew if one of your finger presses was registering or not.
It was just a useability nightmare.
Expectations are up again.
We don’t need another n8.
Not seriously thinking nokia would put that much effort into n9 or n950 whatever they call it assuming this would be the last meego device.
After this, all nokia smartphones will be windows phones and MS is not going to allow nokia make another Meego phone. It’s probably in the contracts.
Aw crap, whatever. don’t really care about nokia anymore. Just deliver it on time and before newer devices make it obselete.
Plans for N9 were well underway before WP7 was even launched. It would be odd if they changed the plans after February’s announcement. MS did not have any saying about Nokia’s planned phones as they could have taken Android instead of WP just as well.
Don’t you think it would be disaster on their side if they don’t trust their new and shiny OS that much as to let Nokia do whatever they like with their existing OS’s?
So could it be this one?
Nokia files for patent for ‘Diamond’-Coated Mobile Phones:
http://www.esato.com/news/article.php/id=1424
As checking, from my point of view, similar solution is being produced from IBM.
Doesn’t anyone feel like this is all too much to expect from Nokia? A company which took many years even to bring the capacitive touch to market (whatever be the reason) and that too it took many iterations/product/phone releases to perfect it.
KB-less design will supposedly be better than prototype device in teaser ad. I thought the device wasn’t going to get Meego but a hybrid OS Maemo 6/harmattan before Meego Update when it’s ready. Lets hope Nokia finally put a big battery in there. Also Cortex dual core A9 500Mhz would be more than enough especially at low NM production fabs especially as low as 32NM. AMOLED possibly with CB, 64GB HDD, RAM 768MB or more even 1GB. But really maemo was pretty efficient with memory multitasking ..will it really be a problem?? No!!