It's never clear how a company plans on implementing a given patent, but Sony's patent application for a haptic touchscreen composed of "tactile pixels" lists former Sony Computer Entertainment chief Phil Harrison as the inventor and makes several references to potential use in "a game device" and to "game events," so it's a safe bet that it was at least developed with the PSP in mind. The patent app describes a sophisticated haptic feedback system that goes well beyond the basic rumble of today's device -- the pixels themselves are able to move up and down between two positions, providing direct feedback to user actions. That's certainly an interesting idea, but like all patent news, we're not going to hold out hope for it to surface in a consumer device anytime soon -- but we're willing to be surprised, you know?

[Via PSP Fanboy]

Although Immersion's VibeTonz technology has been integrated into various Samsung handsets in the past, the shakin' technology was previously limited to ring tone and gaming enhancements. Today, however, Samsung is launching the keypad-less SCH-W559, which is the self-proclaimed "world's first" handset to utilize the VibeTonz system as a means of tactile feedback. The unit's QVGA touchscreen is meant to be a hands-on experience, and whether you use a stylus or the tips of your finger, the phone will provide a vibrating cue, which can be adjusted and customized within the phone's software, whenever you touch a virtual button. Immersion claims that its technology allows the on-screen buttons to feel more like "mechanical keys" rather than just a sheet of plastic. The device will be launching solely on China Unicom initially, will support both CDMA / GSM networks, and will feature a 1.3-megapixel camera, Bluetooth, handwriting recognition capability, and audio / video playback functions to boot. Of course, users will be able to pimp out their ringtones with integrated buzzing, and while we're not sure how much Samsung plans on charging for the rumbler, we can't wait for it to start shaking things up here on American soil.

[Thanks, Peter S.]

Okay, we'll admit it: we're definitely not "tough guys" around here, and when we need to use the ATM after dark (heck, even before dark), we're looking over our shoulder every two seconds to make sure no one is scoping our easy-to-guess PIN or lying in wait to snatch that fresh stack of twenties out of our RSI-plagued hands. Well computer engineers at Queen's University Belfast in the UK are trying to make those late-night ATM runs just a little less terrifying, with a new system for password entry that uses tactile feedback combined with on-screen cues instead of the old ten button method we're used to. The whole process centers around a modified computer mouse with sixteen moving pins under both the index and middle fingers; different pin patterns are known as tactons. To enter a password, the user must manipulate the mouse so that a cursor moves through nine different boxes on the display, with each box sending a different, random tacton back to the mouse. Once the user feels the proper tacton correlating to the first element of his/her password, he/she then clicks the mouse button in the appropriate box and proceeds to repeat the process until the requisite number of codes have been entered. While subjects in a study felt more secure with this technique and were able to remember their tacton sequences even after several weeks of non-use, the biggest downside here is that testers needed an average of 38 seconds to negotiate all those boxes and get all their clicks in. So while the tactile system seems to do a good job thwarting nosey parkers, those 30+ seconds of staring at the screen give crooks plenty of time to sneak up behind you and force you to hand over your life savings (or $500 -- gotta love those daily limits).

The University of Buffalo's mad scientists are hoping that the "Fingertip Digitizer" will kick off the next phase in computer interfaces by harnessing people's learned physical motions and movement to kill the UI learning curve. All one needs to do is simply slip the sleeve onto their fingers and the device's thin-film embedded force sensors and tri-axial accelerometer will track their movements in real-time, even providing tactile feedback corresponding to physical motions and virtual environments. One might reminisce of a Tom Cruise flick or other implementations of gesture interface control, but the "Fingertip Digitizer" works a bit different then most by allowing the user to not only to command the system with motion, but also feel it (perhaps most similarly to Novint's Falcon). For example, if you move your hand to pick up a ball, you will not only instruct the computer to grab the ball, but feel the pressure and weight of the ball in your hand; should you motion pulling the trigger on a sniper rifle in an FPS, you'll feel that 1.5-pound hair-trigger move ever so slightly with your index finger. The whole system is going to be on display at this year's SIGGRAPH if you're nearby and want to peep one vision of future haptic interfaces, but otherwise you'll have to wait until this system hits commercial applications within about three years to get your mitts on these mitts.