1 March 2004
Wireless Week

 

The phrase "ease of use" has developed into a kind of mantra in the wireless industry in recent years, perhaps ever since the first version of WAP promised but didn't deliver a wireless Internet.

There are a number of ways to judge a device's ease of use. A common one is the number of key clicks it takes to launch an application. With the initial WAP, it took a dozen or more. That number has fallen to two or three on some devices.

But what if the end user didn't have to click a key at all? What if he or she just had to touch the phone and the handset would "know" what to do?

That's the goal of a Silicon Valley startup called Atrua Technologies, which brought its new technology out of hiding at the 3GSM World Congress last month. Atrua, based in Campbell, Calif., uses haptics technology on handsets in a new way.

Haptics, often referred to as the science of touch, has been used in a variety of products as a kind of output technology. Computer games use it for vibrations and the like. Medical simulators let physicians "feel" a simulated body part.

One haptics company, Immersion of San Jose, Calif., has been shopping its technology for use on wireless handsets, especially for use in gaming. Immersion licensed its technology to handset manufacturer Samsung in January.

Atrua uses haptics in a different way — as an input method both for user identification and as a user interface.

Smart Touch "We call it an intelligent touch-based system based on haptics," says Mark Ostrowski, Atrua's marketing director. Atrua's platform, called Wings, converts finger movements into user commands, for secure passwords and to control applications on a handset.

Using a Wings-enabled phone, a user would brush a fingertip across a sensor, which stores the fingerprint. The fingerprint then could be used for a variety of identification purposes—unlocking the phone, in an m-commerce application or other transaction. Multiple fingerprints could be registered on the phone, providing different levels of service depending on the user.

The fingerprint also could be used to launch an application. A thumbprint might launch a messaging application, or a fingerprint from a ring finger could open the phone's browser.

The tip of the finger also could be used with the sensor to control handset functions, Ostrowski says. That would be especially useful for games, making the finger a kind of joystick. Or it could navigate on the handset's screen.

The company's HapticWare software is capable of providing navigation and control in four dimensions: up, down, pressure and rotation.

"You show this to network operators and they just smile," Ostrowski says. "They recognize the value right away. All of the log-in, password and payment information is right there. We think this could be to mobile commerce what Amazon's 1-touch payment system was for e-commerce."

Easy Does It Rajeev Chanda, senior equity research analyst with Rutberg Company in San Francisco, says it all comes down to ease of use. "Wireless data is beginning to take off, but the key thing is that it is very hard to use data on these devices," he says, adding that companies will gobble up any product or technology that improves that experience. That improvement could come through biometrics, a touchpad or a new graphic user interface.

Atrua raised $13 million in financing last year, led by Nokia Venture Partners and Ericsson Venture Partners, plus others that include Intel Capital. The company has been testing its technology with several Japanese manufacturers.

Chanda thinks Asian carriers may be the first ones to use something like Atrua's Wings because of the general interest of such operators as NTT DoCoMo and SK Telecom in m-commerce authentication systems. Ostrowski says fingerprint authentication would solve consumer concerns about security in an m-commerce situation.

The key to Atrua's success obviously is getting its technology built into handsets, as well as proving that its technology works in the real world.

Rutberg's Chanda says he's seen a number of companies coming out with what promises to be a "revolutionary user interface technology." What all of these companies have to do, he says, is prove their technology is robust and reliable in a consumer setting.

Market trials ultimately will determine how much easier Atrua Wings makes the user experience, Chanda says. If it succeeds there, "ease of use" will include the sensation of touch.