Thursday 5 March 2009

Nokia 5800 updates - Multitouch and Fring Touch

I have updated my list of Nokia 5800 annoyances and bugs.

Also, head over to http://www.jamiefuller.com/ for a most intriguing piece of programming. He actually managed to create a multi-touch concept for the single-touch Nokia 5800, which I think is going to make the Nokia 5800 (and, for that matter, other touch screen devices) a lot more useful in the future, despite it not being "true multi touch". Rather, it is based on the OS's interpretation of multiple touches (returning a point in the middle of a straight line between both presses) and, as Jamie writes, multiple mousemovement polling:

The multiple polling concept checks for rapid changes in mouse locations.

for example:-

On mousedown mousex=100 then on next check the mousex = 200. its a good indicator that 2 positions have been pressed. baring in mind that the computer checks 25 times per second its unlikely that the person has moved it that far in such a short period.

So with multiple polling (Ie taking 2 or more samples) I can tell which button was pressed first and then which button was pressed secondly. it can then be used to filter out presses "in between buttons".

Having the originating point and then a second point can allow for more intricate gesture based controls but that was beyond the scope of this project.

Interesting indeed! Jamie made a proof of concept in the shape of a Guitar Hero-style game, which he demonstrates in a YouTube vid on his site.

In other Nokia 5800 news, the guys over at Fring have yesterday released a new version for the Tube. I've tested it and I like what I see. Despite some icons lacking - or being ugly - and the problem that the Nokia 5800 has when scrolling/searching long lists, the chat functionality is very exciting. Also, calling over Skype works, although I must mention the enormous delays - even with good 3G signal.

2 comments:

Kimmo said...

I also tried Fring and works pretty ok. So far one of the best pieces of software for 5800. I actually didn't notice any Skype lag when on a wlan. You should try buddycloud also @ http://www.buddycloud.com/cms/.

sander said...

Hi Taikonautti

Thanks, I've tried Buddycloud a bit. Unfortnately I have not enough friends with a smartphone for this to be really useful for me. I guess I should hang out with other people :p