Motorola Investing To Improve Multitouch Technology
Motorola’s venture capital arm invested an undisclosed amount in Sensitive Object, a company that has developed multitouch technology which is supposed to represent the future of touch-based user interfaces.
Sensitive Object has developed technology that uses acoustics, rather than optical, resistive or capacitive technologies, to run the touch mechanism. When a user touches a device equipped with Sensitive Object’s technology, the touch produces sound waves that are unique to the impact.
That means the technology could be applied to an entire mobile phone, for example, including the sides and back. Users playing a game on a mobile phone might be able to touch any part of the device to play the game.
Multitouch is becoming an attractive feature in the smartphone world, and it is featured prominently in top-tier devices like the Palm Pre, Apple iPhone 3GS, and the BlackBerry Storm 2. The technology is also slowly permeating into other devices, as Microsoft’s Windows 7 offers full multitouch support out of the box.
Motorola has been working hard to recover its dramatic loss of market share and profits. It has whittled down the many operating systems that it used to build phones on to primarily just one: Android. Its first two Android phones both have touch screens and appear to be doing well commercially.