Immersion has already introduced its Motiv haptic feedback platform for the Android OS earlier this year, but it's now making the promised SDK available for download. SDK 1.0 will let Android developers to bring tactile feedback into their products. It contains hundreds of haptic effects, code samples and other resources.
Immersion on Thursday showed off its new MOTIV development platform for Android devices. The technology promises to bring next-generation haptic feedback to device makers and app developers. Immersion believed the current process of bringing haptic feedback into a user interface and applications is too complicated and that its MOTIV platform will ease this process for an interface or an app.
Synaptics on Monday revealed a concept phone design that shows input methods beyond touchscreens. The Fuse, co-designed by TheAlloy and The Astonishing Tribe, has a multi-touch capacitive screen but also embeds grip and touch sensors on the sides that can recognize when the phone is squeezed or touched beyond its display. It would even have basic touch control from the back of the phone to provide control without blocking the screen itself.
Immersion on Tuesday announced it has joined the Symbian Foundation, giving other members access to the company's TouchSense haptics technology. The TouchSense API is available for free to programmers who are developing applications for the Symbian platform and cellphone makers can separately license Immersion's haptic technology. Haptic feedback such as Immersion's theoretically improve touchscreen interaction by producing confirmation of a virtual button press with vibration and sound.
Virtual Reality Feedback head and inventor Craig Thorner this week sued Sony's PlayStation divisions in Japan and the US, as well as PDP/Electro Source and multiple attorneys, over the alleged theft of intellectual property relating to force feedback technology that would ultimately be used in the DualShock 3 controller for later PlayStation 3 consoles. New Jersey-based Thorner claims that Sony violated trust by failing to defend him and his patents against lawsuits from Immersion.
It was announced today that Immersion Corp. will pay $20.8 million to Microsoft to settle a lawsuit regarding vibration technology used in the latter's gaming system controllers. As part of the settlement, Immersion will join Microsoft's Certified Partner Program. The now-discarded lawsuit stems from a previous settlement Sony and Immersion reached that saw Sony pay Immersion $121 million for use of its patented technology, with Microsoft claiming its sublicense agreement gives it a claim to a portion of the Sony/Immersion settlement that Immersion initially refused to pay.
