Samsung has been demonstrating smart phone size 3D active matrix organic light emitting diode (AMOLED) displays for a few years now at industry events.  Now Samsung has announced their SCH-W960 mobile phone with 3.2-inch WVGA (400×240 pixels) 3D AMOLED touchscreen display (photo below).

The 3D AMOLED display is autostereoscopic, meaning that no glasses are required, and can be switched between 2D and 3D modes.

In other news, Sharp has announced they will ship a 3D camera module (photo below) intended for mobile devices.  The 3D camera module is capable of capturing high-definition (720px2) 3D video images (1280×720 pixels).

Sharp will start shipping samples in July, 2010, with mass production of the 3D camera modules later in 2010.  So while consumers may have to wait a while for a 3D-camera-packing mobile phone, they shouldn’t have to wait too long.

Yet another emerging theme for smart phone development is inclusion of a gyroscope that will drive the motion capture and tracking capabilities of smart phones to new levels beyond today’s accelerometer equipped models.

Invensense, Inc. has demonstrated 3-axis gyro plus accelerometer-based motion sensing and processing hardware in a smart phone application.  The addition of the Invensense hardware and software to a smart phone enables accurate gestural input and motion processing capabilities in the phone.  For example, drawing a letter “P” in the air by waving the handset starts the photo viewing application on the phone.  The user can scroll through multiple photos by tilting the phone to the left or right to advance back and forth through the photos.  Tilting the phone fore and aft allows the user to zoom in or out on the photo.  The video below from Invensense provides a good illustration of the capabilities of gyro-sensing input in a smart phone application.

Invensense’s motion sensing solutions have already been widely applied for image stabilization in digital cameras and in gaming including the Nintendo Wii MotionPlus controller accessory and seem to be cost effective and ready for additional applications.

The addition of 3D image capture and display, combined with accurate 3D spatial location sensing using a gyro promises to provide smart phone manufacturers with new ways to differentiate their products and should offer consumers and especially gamers new ways to interact with their handheld devices.

An especially compelling example of some recent efforts is exemplified by the work of Chris Harrison and his colleagues at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University and at Microsoft Research.  Their work entitled “Skinput: Appropriating the Body as an Input Surface” (Note: PDF file) was recently presented at the CHI 2010 Conference (ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems).

The Skinput technology uses a novel array of electro-mechanical sensors worn as an armband to resolve the location of finger taps on the arm and hand.  In several proof of concept applications the authors demonstrate the use of the Skinput technology as a computer input device.  In one intriguing application, the authors utilize a picoprojector to display user interface areas on the user’s forearm and hand that can then be touched/tapped to initiate commands.  This form of user interface seems pretty far fetched but the authors have done a good job of developing, evaluating and demonstrating applications of the technology.

To obtain a clearer understanding of Skinput, it’s helpful to look over a few pictures.  The photo below from the authors CHI paper shows the wearable, bio-acoustic sensing array armband.

The integration of the picoprojector with the input sensing armband is illustrated in the photo below.  In this application demonstration the picoprojector is used to display input features on the user’s forearm that are then tapped, detected by the armband sensor, and then processed to enter commands to the computing device.

The authors have demonstrated a variety of projected input modalities including the keypad style example shown in the photo below.

The authors provide a good deal of data in their paper concerning the classification accuracy of their Skinput technology for a variety of input gestures.  The classification accuracy obtained was generally relatively good suggesting that this form of input technology may in fact be usable in future mobile devices.

Although the photos above suggest how the Skinput sensor works, how the sensor can be combined with a picoprojector, and how the combination might be applied in a mobile device application, the video below provides a more descriptive and convincing demonstration of the technology.

As the market importance of mobile devices continues to grow and as designers work to incorporate more capable and attractive display and user interface capabilities in mobile devices, rapidly evolving technologies such as Skinput and picoprojectors will likely be brought into widespread application.

The industry standing of display and input technologies is clearly reflected in the program for this year’s Society for Information Display (SID) Display Week which will include a new market focus conference on “The Future of Touch & Interactivity.”  The SID Market Focus Conference Series at Display Week 2010 will take place on May 26th and 27th at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle.

I will be at SID Display Week 2010 in Seattle this month and look forward to seeing you there to hear about and discuss the latest technical and business innovations.  If you would like to meet with WRT Associates at Display Week you can call +1-970-219-8800 or drop us an email.  In the display industry that is currently seeing serious growth in market interest and sales of mobile devices like the iPhone, iPad, and emerging products with advanced user interfaces such as Microsoft’s upcoming Project Natal gestural gaming interface, we expect there will be many interesting new developments.

This trend to acquire companies with interesting products and patents is of course not new.  In the area of touch screen interfaces one good example is Apple’s 2005 acquisition of FingerWorks.  FingerWorks founded in 1998 developed products and patents incorporating multitouch touch screen user interfaces.  FingerWorks intellectual property acquired by Apple and additional patents by Apple after FingerWorks personnel joined the company have provided Apple with a strong base of innovation on which to launch products including the iPhone and iPad.

While the slowly recovering economy may be in part to credit for the recent up tick in acquisition activity, we expect that strong sales of mobile and tablet computing devices during the preceding economic slump points to the mobile device market as an area of continuing high performance.

The customary CTIA Wireless keynote addresses held each morning prior to the opening of the exhibit floor were informative and high energy.  Although strong, the keynotes were perhaps not as engaging as April 1, 2008’s address by Richard Branson.  Sir Richard concluded his keynote by inviting audience members who would volunteer for Virgin Galactic’s and Google’s joint project Virgle, to travel to Mars to establish a colony, to join him on-stage.  However, the panel discussion keynote on the third day moderated by CNBC Anchor and Reporter Michelle Caruso-Cabrera with Avatar Director James Cameron, Aneesh Chopra, Obama administration CTO, U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Biz Stone, Co-founder of Twitter, made for some eclectic and lively discussion.  Director Cameron remarked that Avatar is the most pirated film ever while Mr. Stone suggested that all one had to do to catch the pirates was to scan internet users for eye patches.

The first day keynotes included an address by J.K. Shin, President, Mobile Communications Business, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. during which he emphasized the themes of Screen, Speed and Content.  The choice of display Screen as his first theme became clearer during Samsung’s “Unpacked” press conference immediately following Mr. Shin’s first day keynote.

Given the wide range of portable products and applications exhibited at CTIA, there were a comparably wide range of input and output technologies for display and user interface control.  The exhibit floor space was perhaps a bit smaller than when I last attended in 2008, but there was no shortage of new product announcements.

Many of the announcements involved advanced displays.  These included Samsung’s roll out of their Galaxy S smart phone with a 4 inch “Super” AMOLED display with an integrated capacitive touch screen – clearly aimed as a direct competitor to Apple’s iPhone.

While e-readers were emphasized by only a few exhibitors, Kobo www.kobobooks.com launched new e-reader hardware, the Kobo^TM eReader.  While the Kobo^TM eReader was a relatively conventional E-Ink display based e-reader, the hardware platform is a complement to the family of Kobo eReading service and software offerings that promise to be device neutral, content rich, open and globally based.

On the input device side, Invensense showed their digital 3-axis gyroscope as a partner participant in the Qualcomm booth.  Invensense gyroscope technology is currently employed in a range of consumer electronics products for image stabilization in digital cameras and in the Nintendo Wii game accessory the Wii MotionPlus.  Invensense demonstrated at CTIA a smartphone handset with highly accurate gesture input capability.  Although there were other new display and input device applications at CTIA, one that particularly stood out for its novelty was NTT Docomo’s demonstration of eye-controlled earphones as a new form of user input device.

If you would like to see photos from the show and learn more details about the Mobile Display and User Interface advances that we found at CTIA Wireless 2010, I recommend that you visit Insight Media’s website and subscribe to their Mobile Display Report.

Nevertheless, the iPad will issue forth Saturday, April 3, and the interest continues to grow.  In some quarters, interest in the iPad is strong, particularly from applications developers and the VCs financing them. The video below captures the VC interest in the upcoming iPad release.

Other iPad observers seem to be taking more of a “wait and see” approach.  David Pogue’s dueling-points-of-view pre-reviews of the iPad in the March 31 New York Times capture the opposing opinions of the importance of the iPad.

We will have to wait for at least this weekend, and likely beyond, to reach a conclusion concerning the importance of the iPad.  Clearly, Steve Jobs has succeeded again in raising Apple’s profile in the consumer electronics world, and has perhaps distracted us from fixating on the features of the expected new version of the iPhone.  Nevertheless, the ecosystem of users, applications developers and content providers that Apple has woven around the iDevice universe are moving forward together to drive Apple to greater heights.

When I think about it, Neil Young is a pretty important content creator himself.  Neil, how will your content play on the iPad…  Neil, are you out there?

In 2010, it is clear that Apple has strongly influenced mobile industry structure, as well as consumers’ expectations of a mobile device and the ecosystem that surrounds it including service providers, handset designers, applications developers, content providers, accessory makers, and more.  As I pointed out in an earlier article, in my view an essential element that makes the iPad different in an important way is that the iPad is the first widely available platform that will give users and developers the opportunity to explore large-size, multi-touch applications.  This device characteristic combined with Apple’s appeal to the mass market, and the built-in user base and developer community created with the iPhone, have enabled Apple, its customers, and developers to invent the future of user interfaces.  Thus I found an article from the March 21 New York Times revealing and supporting my position.  Neil Young co-founder and head of the iPhone gaming studio Ngmoco, said his company was updating several games to accommodate the iPad, including a multiplayer game called Charadium where players draw items and take turns guessing what the picture is.  The game will get new controls and a roomier blank pad to draw on.

“There are so many more places to touch on the screen,” he said. “We can have a lot more fun with it.” ”

Naturally, since the ever green/very durable Mr. Young is one of my all time favorite musicians, song writers, entrepreneurs, I am happy to see that I am in good company with my views of the iPad.

With “so many more places to touch” the iPad will present us all with an opportunity to test our ideas and see where they lead.

The iPad is the first widely available platform that will give users and developers the opportunity to explore large size multi-touch applications. Steve Jobs made the point that in developing the iPad, Apple stands on the shoulders of devices like the Kindle. The iPad also stands on the many shoulders, and benefits from the ecosystem, of multi-touch-trained users, content providers, and applications developers that Apple created with the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Along with their good industrial design, and excellent hardware and software attributes, Apple has consistently been a leader in providing elegant and effective user interfaces. Apple has steadily incorporated high quality input/output devices (displays, keyboards, mice, touch screens) in its products. In recent years, multi-touch input has been a notable feature of Apple products including MacBook computers, the iPhone, iPod Touch and Magic Mouse. No other device designer has had such wide success with touch interfaces.

Apple’s iPad is a bold extension of the touch interface to a much larger size allowing more evolved one hand and two hand gestural inputs. To give earlier workers their due, there have been prior developers that have demonstrated large scale multi-touch devices. However, Apple’s legions of app developers will likely have a field day working to exploit the interface opportunities.

Other ingredients of the iPad may evolve in future versions (cameras, voice, wireless air interface, etc.) but multi-touch input will likely be the defining feature that determines the success of Apple’s latest offering in the tablet category. The continued evolution and success of the touch interface will be validated, or not, by the iPad. Multi-touch on the iPad will be the product’s breakthrough or breaking point. The app store opens the iPad to experimentation by developers and users. I wonder who could have anticipated SonicMule’s Ocarina app for the iPhone and the music potential that has sprung from it.

By creating a larger size, mass market, touch device with a built-in user base and developer community, Apple has enabled its customers and developers to invent the future of user interfaces.