In a recent interview with The Korea Times, Atrua vice president Carl Temme predicted premium phones will adopt Atrua Wing, the firm’s touch control device, starting next year.

Atrua Wing detects and converts finger movements of users into responsive control capabilities, thus enabling fingerprint recognition or improving the usability of mobile phones through easy mastery of games and other applications.

``In the 25-year history of the handset, there have been many advances in its network and data speed. As a result, we now have a camera, game and MP3 in handsets,’’ Temme said.

``But we saw very little advances in input devices and Atrua Wing can change that situation.’’

Atrua Wing is composed of a touch control sensor and embedded software and the tiny product does not need power since the electricity generated by finger motion is strong enough to operate it.

``Atrua Wing is better than a four-way keypad or four-way joystick. As it saves space in a mobile phone compared to traditional button-type keypads, handset makers will increasingly adopt it over the next five years,’’ Temme projected.

To attract Korean customers, Atrua yesterday set up a marketing and technical support center here, the home of the world’s third-largest cell phone maker, Samsung Electronics, and fourth-biggest player, LG Electronics.

``Customers in Korea are very advanced in cell phone usage and Korean handset makers are very important in the United States as Samsung and LG are two of the top three handset makers in the U.S.,’’ Temme said.

He added Atrua is now negotiating with Korean handset vendors to supply them with its touch control product, which typically sells at under $5.

Atrua Wing already gained some recognition of its potential with the U.S. magazine Red Herring naming it one of the 100 most promising high-tech firms in North America earlier this month.