MotoDevelopmentGroup
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Cisco buys MOTO Development Group to beef up consumer design chops
Cisco's already taken some big steps into the consumer market by buying the Flip cam line and releasing the Valet routers, but the company isn't done yet -- it's just acquired the MOTO Development Group, a San Francisco design house that's worked on a variety of high-profile products like Zune 2.0 and the LiveScribe Pulse. MOTO's also done some work on Android-based e-readers and MIDs that never really went anywhere, but you probably know the company best for its controversial smartphone touchscreen linearity test, which caused so much ruckus the firm actually re-did the whole thing with a robot in charge. Cisco says the MOTO crew will live in the consumer products division, alongside Linksys, Valet, and Flip, so we should see some interesting cross-pollination soon -- and based on Cisco's middling recent efforts like the Flip Slide HD, we'd even say MOTO might do well to lead a total revamp of the company's approach to consumer design. We'll see how it goes.
MOTO touchscreen comparison recruits robotic implements for heightened precision (video)
So you saw that the first MOTO smartphone touchscreen comparison was done with a fleshy humanoid controlling the testing finger and discounted it as scientifically flawed? Well, MOTO's back and this time the arm of judgment is operated by a coldly mechanical and ruthlessly precise robot -- a machine in itself, we'll assume the robot is intrinsically immune to developing fanboy tendencies. Joining the iPhone, Droid Eris, Droid, and Nexus One of the earlier test are Palm's Pre and RIM's BlackBerry Storm 2, whose results you can see at the source link below. The full test methodology is also explained there, including a list of the drawing apps used, which were selected with a view to minimizing smoothing algorithms that may prejudice the outcome. We're not gonna tell you who won, you have eyes of your own after all, and will just direct you after the break for the full robot-on-smartphone video action.
Droid doesn't. Have touchscreen accuracy, that is...
Now there's a nicely-documented fact that you can throw back in the face of that annoying friend of yours who got a Verizon Droid and who keeps saying "It's just like an iPhone!" According to a report cited on AppleInsider this morning, the touchscreen accuracy of the iPhone is much better than that of three Android phones: the Motorola Droid pushed by Verizon, the HTC Droid Eris, and the new Google Nexus One. Why is that important? Well, when you're trying to tap a link on a website, for example, chances are very good that you're going to be successful on the iPhone and not on the Android phones. The tests, performed by MOTO Development Group (no relation to Motorola), measured touchscreen accuracy with a simple test. On each device, a drawing app was launched and a tester drew straight diagonal lines in both directions across the screens with a finger. iPhones showed straight lines in situations with both light and medium finger pressure, while the Android phones showed zig-zag wavy lines across the screen. MOTO stated: "On inferior touchscreens, it's basically impossible to draw straight lines. Instead, the lines look jagged or zig-zag, no matter how slowly you go, because the sensor size is too big, the touch-sampling rate is too low, and/or the algorithms that convert gestures into images are too non-linear to faithfully represent user inputs. This is important because quick keyboard use and light flicks on the screen really push the limits of the touch panel's ability to sense." Several user comments on the MOTO site validate the findings. Have any TUAW readers been able to compare touchscreen accuracy on an iPhone and an Android device? Leave a comment below. [via AppleInsider]
MOTO releases AMP MID, the OLED Android 2.0 handheld you didn't even know existed
Remember those BASF commercials, the: "We make a lot of the products you buy better" ones? That's kind of the story at MOTO Development Group. We've seen the company working on e-ink internals, also having a hand in the creation of the Zune 2.0 and the Livescribe Pulse. MOTO's going it alone for its latest product, though, a MID reference design called the Android Media Platform (AMP) that runs Android 2.0 and is available now to developers. Yes, the DROID isn't the only 2.0 player releasing today. AMP will ultimately be available in three sizes: 10-, 5-, and 3.5-inches; the mid-sized model is the one shipping now. That touchscreen can be OLED or LCD, oomph is provided by a Texas Instruments OMAP3430 CPU, accelerometers and GPS are integrated as is 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth, and optional 3G wireless, all powered by a 3,000mAh battery. There's no word on price, but we're guessing that's somewhat negotiable depending on your intended application and, naturally, the volume, volume, volume of your order.
Video: MOTO Lab's multitouch display scalable up to 50-inches
When the heads over at the MOTO Development Group aren't busy outfitting E-Ink devices with Android, they can often be found looking for bigger, better, and cheaper ways to build multitouch surfaces -- and they seem to be on to something. The video below shows full multitouch on a 19-inch display, although the company promises it is scalable up to at least 50-inches -- and it does this without the bulky projector. The capacitive touch screen forgoes the ITO (indium tin oxide) used in devices like the iPhone, relying instead on "extremely fine" wires to conduct the signals (which are lit up here for effect -- the company assures us that this will not be the case in production units). You know what this means: we may be getting that touch screen coffee table sooner than we thought! And we won't have to buy that yacht, either. But don't take out word for it -- peep for yourself after the break.
