A phone has been modified to be able to transfer a squeeze to another phone. A prototype by Nokia Research and the Helsinki Institute of Information Technology amended an N900 to use a resistor to detect up to four different levels of pressure from compression. The recipient of the phone call receives different levels of vibration, depending on the amount of pressure applied.
Researchers have found a way to increase the resolution of a display beyond its normal capabilities, thanks to the inherent latency of the brain's visual processing. Floraine Berthouzoz and Raqanan Fattal, graphics researchers, found that by vibrating the screen and quickly showing four lower-resolution images of a larger-resolution photograph, the viewer's brain can combine the images and see something close to the original photo.
In an effort to make typing on the iPhone more familiar, the University of Glasgow has unveiled a hack that provides vibration feedback when a virtual key is pressed, simulating the effect of typing on a real keyboard. The patch enables what the University calls haptic feedback, which researchers say can help improve typing speeds, while simultaneously reducing errors. The hack is available from the University's Google Code page, requiring a jailbroken 1.1.3 iPhone.
