Remember Neonode? The company’s troubled N2 handset was so beleaguered with problems that less than a year after it launched, the company filed for bankruptcy. Since its lowest ebb, the company has reinvented itself as a component manufacturer leveraging its infrared-based user interface technology. Now it’s demonstrating proof of concept hardware that shows off a way to add touch to any surface. Cool innovation or the reheated leftovers of an obsolete technology? Head on past the break to find out our initial impressions.
Neonode has announced the market introduction of its new smartphone platform promising to be a low-cost and high-performance touch solution for feature phones and smartphones. The smartphone platform is called the Neonode Smartphone I platform. The platform is a fully integrated mobile phone touch sensing solution that promises a total bill of materials as low as two dollars in high volumes.
The solution uses Neonode’s MultiSensing technology that claims to be up to 10 times faster than industry-standard capacitive solutions on the market right now. The touch solution supports gestures that can be performed by any object such as a bare finger, gloved finger, paintbrush, stylus, or a normal pen. The system also promises ultra-low-power utilization and a 1000 Hz scanning rate to provide close to zero latency.
The touch solution is also pressure sensitive and has a low total building height allowing device designers to make exceptionally thin mobile phones. The solution also offers a short-range proximity sensing capability. That feature allows the user to operate the phone using touchscreen gestures in the air and to detect objects nearby.
The Neonode Smartphone I system also recognizes gestures smartphone users are used to using for navigation, including gestures for zooming and more. One of the better features is a screen that promises to be almost glare free and optimized for use in any lighting condition, including direct sunlight. Most touchscreens lose a lot of their viewing performance and usability when in direct sunlight. The Neonode system is also ruggedized. There is no word on when a smartphone or feature from using this technology will come to market at this time.
One Laptop Per Child hasn’t exactly been silent about the upcoming release of its XO Touch, but details have thus far been fairly thin. The company’s offered up a little more information on the matter, while sprinkling in some extra bits on the device it’s now referring to as the XO-4 Touch. The release of the laptop / tablet “dual function” education device is now “expected in Q1 2013,” according to the non-profit. Beyond that, details of timing and price are still quite vague. The XO-4 touch will feature a multi-touch display from Neonode that can be used in sunlight and will be packing a Marvell ARMADA 2128 processor inside. Press release after the break.
Update: OLPC has offered us some specs for device including 8GB of storage, 2GB of memory, a 1200 x 900 display, SD slot, HDMI out, an accelerometer, 802.11a/b/g/n and two USB 2.0 ports.
The One Laptop Per Child’s project just got one step closer to updating its venerable XO portable through a newly-struck licensing deal with Neonode. The XO Touch 1.75, a slight rebranding of the as yet unreleased XO 1.75 we saw last year, will use Neonode’s MultiSensing to give the laptop a multi-touch screen that’s both very responsive and eco-friendly in the same breath. Even as it samples finger input at up to 1GHz, the new OLPC system’s 300 DPI display will still use under 2W of power and remain viewable in bright sunlight — students can even wake up the new model with a gesture instead of using anything so crude as a power button. As important as these advances are to bringing touch to remote schools, we still have some questions about the release schedule and the cost. The XO 1.75 was originally due this year, but we don’t know if the Neonode pact will alter the timetable or hike the target price. We’ve reached out to the OLPC team for comment and will update if there’s new details.
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