Nokia perfects the clicky tactile touchscreen

Immersion has had an agreement with Nokia for over one year - without a haptic phone reaching the market, yet. One explanation is that Nokia has been "fine tuning" the touch feed back with IMMR - and under this view the agreement for a flat fee could find an explanation. more questions than answers, anyway...

>>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.

“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.

A post from cellodude on IV:

>>IMMR has patents covering the use of piezo actuators under the touch screen for haptic feedback. Yes Nokia is paying IMMR for IP, plus SDK & consultation to achieve exactly the effects they want.

[United States Patent Application 20080111788
Rosenberg; Louis B.; et al. May 15, 2008 [continuation from 2003]
Assignee Name: Immersion Corporation

Haptic feedback for touchpads and other touch controls

[0035]...one or more piezoelectric actuators 42 are coupled to the underside of the touchpad 16...In one embodiment, a single piezoelectric actuator 42 is positioned at or near the center of the touchpad...In other embodiments, multiple piezoelectric actuators 42 can be positioned at different areas of the touchpad...

[0039] The piezoelectric actuators 42 have several advantages for the touchpad 16. These actuators can be made very thin and small, allowing their use in compact housings that are typical for portable electronic devices. They also require very low power, and are thus suitable for devices with limited power (e.g., powered by batteries).]