Video: Software transforms a phone鈥檚 message inbox or battery life into box of balls or a virtual liquid fuel tank that sound and feel like the real thing when shaken (Video: Glasgow University)
Cellphone users could soon tell when their handset is running low on juice or laden with new messages simply by reaching into their bag or pocket and giving it a quick shake.
A new system uses a phone鈥檚 speaker and vibrator to make a device feel and sound like it contains liquid when it is running out of power. The same technique can be used to indicate when new messages have arrived, by simulating the sense of balls rattling around inside a box.
Both tricks let a user check the state of their device quickly and without having to actually look at it. A video (top, right) shows the system 鈥� dubbed Shoogle after a Scots-English word meaning to shake 鈥� being demonstrated.
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鈥淚t allows you to feel and hear the state of your phone, instead of having to look,鈥� says at Glasgow University researcher who developed the system with colleagues Rod Murray-Smith and Stephen Hughes.
Varied feedback
To represent number of messages in a phone鈥檚 inbox, models the movement of the equivalent number of balls, as if anchored by a spring inside a box.
And different sounds could be set to correspond to different people, says Williamson. The sounds used range from (.wav format) to (.wav format).
Similarly, Shoogle lets you 鈥渇eel鈥� the amount of battery power left in the cellphone, by having the phone simulate a reducing volume of (.wav format) inside a virtual container.
A phone running the software knows when it is being shaken by using accelerometers to sense the handset鈥檚 movement. The software has so far been tested on a PDA with accelerometers attached and on Nokia phones with the devices built in.
Increased sophistication
As more phones with accelerometers are released for sale, Williamson expects to see more novel ideas that make use them. 鈥淣okia has released a programming kit to help people develop software to use the accelerometers in their phones, making applications easier to develop,鈥� he says.
Informal user testing suggests people get on well with the idea, but larger-scale tests are planned, Williamson says. 鈥淲e may also make a release of the software publicly,鈥� he adds.
The team also hopes to make the system more sophisticated. 鈥淲e can discriminate between shaking in different directions,鈥� explains Williamson, 鈥渟o left-to-right could check for just high-priority messages and another direction for other messages.鈥�
Shoogle was presented at the conference held in California in 2007.
