Next-Generation Nokia Cell Phone Could Sport a Joystick
Serious fun is the operative idea behind new Nokia designs, including a phone that could mimic the Wii’s wireless controller
Nokia has been hard at work designing more playful mobile phones. The Finnish company’s latest innovation is a recently patented design that incorporates a built-in joystick function to give the phone an edge with serious gamers.
Inventors John Patrick Wong and Jeff Philip Crampton of Vancouver, BC, were granted a patent on a cell phone design with a trackball in its face that accepts insertion of a detachable stylus. Insert the stylus into the trackball and, voila, the phone’s keypad becomes a joystick game controller. Combined with advances in mobile phone processing power and graphics, joystick controls could propel the Nokia design into a new gaming league.
The plot thickens when considered in conjunction with another recently granted Nokia patent involving orientation sensors that allow a phone to automatically adjust to being used in any position. Combined with keys that change their labels to accommodate whether the phone is being held upside, on its side or right side up, the patent specifies embedded chips that will also sense velocity and direction when the phone is being moved. This capability will inevitably draw comparisons to the popular and innovative wireless controller for Nintendo’s best-selling Wii videogame device. German inventors Josef Stohr and Thomas Franke also suggest that the signal from an onboard video camera could be used to support the tilt sensor, which itself might use a tiny gyroscope or related gravity- and acceleration-sensing mechanism.
Much of the latter patent application is taken up with elaborating on the keypad design, which specifies the use of “hard” keys rather than soft keys, thus steering clear of a potential infringement claim relating to the Apple iPhone. The iPhone’s multidirectional design relies exclusively on soft keys displayed via a touch-sensitive screen.