UMich’s New Tech Adds 3D Touch To Any Phone

Who said movies are just a waste of time?

Researchers at the University of Michigan have developed a way to add pressure sensitive technology to any smartphone. Yes, in output, this is very similar to the 3D Touch feature that made it’s debut on the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6s Plus and was so far exclusive only for Apple users.

But as the development by these researchers materializes, then who knows, soon your older or non-iPhone too devices might also sport the same feature.

What makes it possible?

To put it in simple words, this technology works by using ultrasound waves. Ah, so now you regret dozing off in that physics lecture on sound back in school? No worries, Chip-Monks is here to help!.

ForcePhone, as its being called by its inventors, works by employing two basic components that are essentially available on any phone: the mic and the speaker. Yup, these two basic components enable you to have the coveted 3D Touch technology.

This tech makes the speaker on your phone emanate a continuous 18kHz hum tone which is beyond the audible range for human ear (your dog might hear it though). And the same smartphone’s mic picks up that high frequency tone. Now, here’s where the actual technology kicks in.

When you squeeze your phone in a particular way or press down the screen, the tone being emitted is modulated, which the ForcePhone software comprehends and converts into predefined commands like opening an app’s menu bar or to dial a specified number or even flip pages in a book you’re reading onscreen. The new software could also allow users to push a little harder on a screen button to unlock a menu of additional options, just like it happens on a computer by right-clicking with a mouse.

“Our sound-based solution can fill this gap, providing the functionality without making any hardware modification. Everything is just software”, said Yu-Chih Tung, a doctoral student in the U-M Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

The whole concept behind this ForcePhone as explained by Tung, seems inspired by the 2008 Batman movie ‘The Dark Knight’ wherein the Caped Crusader traces the Joker by turning all the smartphones in Gotham City into a sonar system and has high-frequency audio signals springing off buildings across town. “I thought it was an interesting idea to turn smartphones into a sonar-based system and felt this could lead to new applications to address challenges faced by smartphone users”, said Tung.

Isn’t that smart!

Who said movies are just a waste of time? In this case, a movie acted as a stimulus for the invention of a new technology altogether.

Kang Shin, professor of Computer Science In Electrical Engineering, who created this technology with Yu-Chih Tung, remarked in a press release, “You do not need a special screen or built-in sensors to do this. Now this functionality can be realised on any phone… We have augmented the user interface without requiring any special built-in sensors. ForcePhone increases the vocabulary between the phone and the user”.

The University of Michigan bragged that the ForcePhone is the first to unlock this kind of pressure-sensitive functionality which no other commercially available device on the market offers.

“I think we are offering a natural interface, like how you turn a knob. It is the next step forward from a basic touch interface and it can complement other gestured communication channels and voice…Having expensive and bulky sensors installed into smartphones can solve every problem we have solved, but the added cost and laborious installation prevent phone manufacturers from doing it.” said Tung in a press release.

Tung and Shin have worked on such innovative technologies in the past too. In fact, ForcePhone is the third piece of software along this line of idea. The previous ones being, BumpAlert, an Android application designed to warn distracted pedestrians of objects in their path, and EchoTag, which let phones tag and remember specific indoor locations and associate those places with certain modes or tasks.

But all of you techno-enthusiasts will have to display a little patience till the time ForcePhone becomes commercially available on phones. Meanwhile, the researchers are set to present their software at the MobiSys 2016 conference in Singapore between 27–29 June.

However exciting this new prospect of interacting with the screen is, it is important to consider the potential flipside of this new technology — does this new way of making phone calls by squeezing the device mean more accidental phone calls? Will the manufacturers embrace this budding software? Well, only the time to come can answer these questions.

Meanwhile, we at Chip-Monks will keep you updated with any of the developments regarding this Batman-inspired software.

Originally published at Chip-Monks.