Sony intros Xperia Sola with no-need-to-touch screen
Cursor controlled with floating fingers
Sony today introduced an Android smartphone, the Xperia Sola, that you can can control without touching.
The latest Sony handset features a "floating touch" navigation system, which detects hovering fingers as a cursor on the display and lets users surf the web without physically touching the screen. Until you need to click something, of course.
Fast forward 40 seconds or so into the following vid to see it in action:
The Xperia Sola features a 1GHz dual-core processor running Android 2.3 Gingerbread. An Android 4 Ice Cream Sandwich update is promised for the the summer.
The Sola has a Bravia-branded 3.7in display, as well as a 5Mp camera with quick snap abilities, taking shots from standby in just over a second. Memory wise, there's 8GB of internal storage but if you need more, there is a microSD slot, expanding memory up to 32GB.
As with its bigger sibling the Xperia S, the Sola sports NFC capabilities and comes with a bunch of data tags to trigger profile settings and set up file sharing.
The Sony Xperia Sola will launch in black, white and red versions in Q2 2012. Prices have yet to be set. ®
COMMENTS
Re: New phone
Do you think this phone was created, engineered, prototyped and tested in 3 months?
It takes a while to get a phone to market and if all the hardware drivers, software and testing has been done on an older version it might not be so simple just to put the latest version on when it is released. Sony probably have about 10 phones that they are currently working on with timetables for release and they can only develop them with currently available software.
The Nexus phones will be used for the actual testing of the next Android release and therefore when it is available it will already be guaranteed to work and available for the latest Nexus phone.
I can see some use for that. Using the BBC mobile sport site can be a pain, as the text is fairly small for big fingers, and clicking on the wrong link isn't unusual. Being able to see which link you're going to click before pressing is a good idea.
Presume you still have to touch the screen to scroll etc, so no problem with holding your finger floating in mid air for long periods.
Shiny
but the "floating finger" is just begging to send pocket messages.
I don't think so. Just held my phone loosely and did a few thumb swipes and actions without trying to touch the screen and it felt perfectly natural and comfortable. Support your phone on your fingertips and one edge in the crook of your hand (i.e. where the bases of your fingers meet your palm) and your thumb doesn't naturally reach the screen.
As for thumb ache, you'll be using exactly the same actions and less energy.
Dear Samsung,
See, this is why Apple are suing you, not Sony. Sony are using a popular design technique called "not just slavishly copying everything Apple does to the extent that your own corporate lawyer can't tell the difference between an Apple iPad and your own, rival, product". The technical jargon for this technique is, "innovation".
Granted, the GUi in this Sony phone could use some more tweaking—hovering a finger over a hyperlink should probably do something a bit more visible than merely adding a thin underscore, for example—but it's a genuinely useful technical user experience innovation that could provide Sony with a unique advantage over Apple.
Something you, Samsung, have singularly failed to do.
Yrs, etc.,
Me.
