Precognitive Phone

The Microsoft phone uses pre-touch technology allowing it to react before you touch it.

21:01 10 May 2016

Microsoft has unveiled a technology that can make your smartphone even smarter. The company has revealed its pre-touch technology that makes the phone react before you touch it. For example, the phone can detect an approaching finger to display controls for a video and detect how the user is gripping the device, adapting how it then displays controls.

 

Ken Hinckley, a principal researcher at Microsoft who led the project, said: 'It uses the hands as a window to the mind. 

 

'I think it has huge potential for the future of mobile interaction.

 

'I say this as one of the very first people to explore the possibilities of sensors on mobile phones, including the now ubiquitous capability to sense and auto-rotate the screen orientation.'

 

Meanwhile, Microsoft said the technology transform touch screens into a more “expressive and entertaining” way of interacting with mobile devices.

 

It said: 'Taken as a whole, our exploration of pre-touch hints that the evolution of mobile touch may still be in its infancy.

 

'With many possibilities unbounded by the flatland of the touchscreen yet to explore.'