This tip comes from
grimo1re
Japanese Company Looks at Using E-Ink in Cell-Phone Keypads
DoCoMo, which is apparently big in the Japanese cellular market, is looking at using e-ink technology to allow cell-phone keypad labels to change with the application being used. I.e. numbers for phone calls and letters for messaging.
Quote:
The cellular carrier showed off prototypes of a phone with an e-paper keypad at the Ceatec exhibition in Chiba, Japan, this week. But the displays, from SiPix Imaging Inc., are not yet ready for commercialization in phones, said Shuichi Aoki, an assistant manager in DoCoMo's Product Department who helped developed the phone.
The prototype phone, which has been in development for about one year, has a keypad that switches the display on each key from numbers to Japanese phonetic characters, called hiragana and katakana, depending on what application is being used. For example, when a user opens the e-mail client, the keypad switches from numbers to the phonetic characters, making them easier for users to see, Aoki said.
|
Once you get to thinking about it, the usefulness of such a move would be pretty mind-boggling, particular for those who find the present arrangement confusing.
Apparently they're still pretty early in the process, and they're encountering some of the same obstacles that everyone else is with this e-ink stuff.
Quote:
Before e-paper can be used in handsets, more work must be done to improve the technology. In particular, the response time of the e-paper display must be improved so that the symbols and icons used with each key change faster when switching between applications.
"It's a little too slow right now," Aoki said.
DoCoMo also wants to switch from using segmented e-paper displays to an active-matrix display for future prototypes. The current prototype uses a segmented e-paper display, which limits the display to pre-set characters, numbers and symbols.
An active matrix display will allow any symbol or letter to be displayed, and allow applications to use their own, customized icons instead of drawing on a pre-determined list of available options, Aoki said.
|
It's not mentioned, but I expect they're also encountering (or will shortly) the conflict between backlights and e-ink -- perhaps they'll come up with something clever and solve that problem for us all.
I think this is the first time I've encountered anyone trying to use e-ink to explicitly re-purpose controls on something like this. It brings hardware controls a bit closer to software ones, such as in an application GUI. Even though it's still years away, it's a very interesting development.
Source