Tech Trader Daily yesterday reported that Synaptics, the company providing capacitive touchscreens to HTC for use in the Google Android based T-Mobile G1, is also the mastermind behind the ClickThrough solution used in the BlackBerry Storm.
Synaptics' capacitive sensing technology can be applied to force sensors, known as capacitive force sensing. In a capacitive force sensor, two metal plates, separated by a small air gap, are positioned close together. Force applied on one of the plates changes the capacitance between them. Synaptics has developed a capacitive force sensing technology that can be used in many scenarios, including pointing sticks and touchscreens. Here's a figure from Synaptics, showing how their TouchStyk works. The rubber cap of the TouchStyk is connected to a metal plate mounted above a Synaptics capacitive sensor:
The BlackBerry Storm also takes advantage of Synaptics' Enhanced Gesture Recognition (EGR), enabling single-finger gestures - Tap, Double Tap, Press, and Flick - as well as a multi-finger gesture, Pinch.
A flick can be used to scroll through photos or playlists.
A pinch can be used to zoom-in on or zoom-out of items such as photos, maps or documents.
A press can be used to display pop-up information (the finger remains down until the information displays).
A tap can be used to launch an application or to close a window.
A tap-and-slide gesture can be used for moving items such as icons or files, or for instance used to select a name from a contacts list to add someone to a conference call.
A double-tap can be used to launch an application.
Combined with BlackBerry OS 4.7 found in the BlackBerry Storm, these gestures have also been applied to several other scenarios, such as marking text for copying and double-tap for writing.
Especially LG offers a wide range of phones taking advantage of various solutions by Synaptics, and it's likely to believe that the BlackBerry Storm is only the first of many smartphones to offer a capacitive touchscreen with tactile feedback. Since Synaptics is a member of the Open Handset Alliance, we also assume that smartphones based on Google Android will appear with such functionality down the road.
Also, make sure to check out our story outlining the capabilities of the BlackBerry Storm here, and a comparison between the BlackBerry Storm, iPhone 3G and T-Mobile G1 here, which all offer a capacitive touchscreen.
The BlackBerry Storm should be released in early November 2008 on Verizon Wireless and Vodafone (Europe, India, Australia and New Zealand) for a reasonable price with a contract.
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