The more three-dimensional interface is designed by The Astonishing Tribe, who also designed Android's UI, as well as interfaces for Sony Ericsson and pretty much every other phonemaker at one point or another.

The major thing here is a couple of new gestures: A squeeze gesture, which is detected by additional accelerometers, and a seamless touchpad embedded in the back, so you can scroll by stroking the back of the phone, where you're not hiding the screen. Tilt also gets a lot more play here, the idea being that you can more easily use it one-handed.

The phone's a concept, led by Synaptics and using hardware like their ClearPad 3000, but I wouldn't be surprised to see the basic concepts show up in phones from LG and others, since a lot of companies use Synaptics' tech in their phones.

UPDATE: Here's a slightly prettier video directly from TAT:

Synaptics Debuts FuseTM Next-Generation Mobile Phone Concept
Synaptics, Texas Instruments, Immersion, TheAlloy, and The Astonishing Tribe demonstrate collaborative design to drive the future of mobile interaction beyond the touchscreen

SANTA CLARA, Calif. – December 14, 2009 – Synaptics Incorporated (NASDAQ: SYNA), a leading developer of human interface solutions for mobile computing, communications, and entertainment devices, today introduced FuseTM, a collaborative mobile phone concept, demonstrating the future of user interaction for handsets. Integrating for the first time multiple interface technologies-including multi-touch capacitive sensing, haptic feedback, 3-D graphics, and force, grip, and proximity sensing-the Fuse concept phone showcases exciting new mobile device usage models. In addition, Fuse demonstrates to device manufacturers the value of ecosystem collaborations providing a model for designing multi- modal interfaces that will optimize the user experience on next-generation handheld device. Every step in the value chain affects and is affected by the end product. A truly collaborative approach takes advantage of each partner's unique contributions in benefiting the user.

Beyond Today's Touchscreen
Fuse extends the now-prevalent touchscreen-based user experience first unveiled in August 2006 with Synaptics' award-winning Onyx mobile concept. With Fuse's bold lineup of innovative interface technologies, Synaptics and partners tackle the difficulty of single- handed usage and the need to look at the screen-two key challenges faced by on-the-go users in current-generation touchscreen phones.
Fuse's innovative sensing technologies surrounding the entire device enable quick, intuitive, single-handed navigation. For example, grip sensing achieved via force and capacitive touch sensors on the sides of the phone allows the user to execute common controls such as pan and scroll. In addition to the novel side sensors, Fuse introduces for the first time, 2D navigation from the back of the phone. This feature offers yet another mode of effective and fun single-handed control without obstructing the display or enhanced usability, Fuse combines multiple sensory input and feedback technologies including active 3-D graphics and next-generation haptic effects.

"Consumers have many options when it comes to choosing a smartphone, and though many phones are loaded with applications to simplify one's life, they often accomplish just the opposite," said William Stofega, research manager for mobile device technology and trends at IDC. "Synaptics partnering with innovative industry leaders to deliver an intelligent concept device that has the consumers' lifestyles in mind will help showcase the true potential of the smartphone."

Collaborative Design
The Fuse mobile phone concept is the result of a unique collaboration between Synaptics and four global partners-TheAlloy, The Astonishing Tribe (TAT), Immersion, and Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI). With human interface and digital lifestyle in mind, the Fuse design team created a stunning and functional user interface with innovative new modes of sensing input, and visual and haptic feedback.
Each partner provided valuable expertise and contributions to the project:
• TheAlloy led the user experience and overall product design efforts.
• TAT enabled the effective 3-D environment and lent their extensive user interface
software design skills.
• Immersion made possible the tactile feedback, ensuring an integrated and satisfying
experience.
• TI's OMAPTM 3630 processor provided the framework and platform to leverage the
enhanced multimedia, graphics and imaging features that consumers crave.

Additionally, Synaptics' ClearPadTM, NavPointTM, and TouchButtonsTM solutions are used in the Fuse mobile concept to offer unique capabilities-such as two-finger input, proximity sensing, grip sensing, text entry, and high-resolution finger input-providing precise pointing and navigation that can dramatically improve and enhance the user experience with a touchscreen.

Future handset innovation will rely on the relationship between technology design and designers to unlock the potential of mobile phones as an ideal computing platform. Fuse illustrates to OEMs the advances in Synaptics' sensing technologies and the collaborative effort that will inspire a new wave of multi-modal input design.

"The best touch experience requires the expertise and collaboration of ecosystem leaders to optimize what the user sees and feels," said Gopal Garg, senior vice president of Synaptics' handheld business unit and corporate marketing. "The improved sensory experience of Fuse will drive handset innovation to evolve, taking the current generation of touch-based interaction to the next level of human-device interaction."

"The Fuse project has demonstrated the power of multi-party collaboration to deliver experience-led innovation, said Gus Desbarats, chairman, TheAlloy. "Each partner within the Fuse project has helped to show the effect that leading-edge technology can deliver when applied with design thinking."

"Exceptional user experience differentiates the best designs," said Craig Vachon, senior vice president and general manager of Immersion's touch line of business. "Fuse exemplifies the power of collaboration and realizes what is possible by integrating innovative technology, including Immersion's next-generation TouchSense solutions. Working with these partners has been gratifying; Fuse is further validation that our haptics technology brings to life the power of touch and makes devices more intuitive, satisfying, and fun to use."

"Providing our technology in order to showcase user experience paradigms of next generation devices is one of the key ingredients that keep TAT ahead of the trends in mobile user interfaces", says Charlotta Falvin, chief executive officer of The Astonishing Tribe. "Realizing design ideas that push the limits of technology like the Fuse UI does is one of our passions."

"The world is changing, and so is the way people interact with their mobile devices. TI is excited to be a part of the innovative Fuse concept that reiterates the significant headway we're making to advance mobile user experiences," said Fred Cohen, director of worldwide ecosystem partners for Texas Instruments. "TI's OMAP platform works in sync with these other impressive technologies to bring big-screen, life-like capabilities to consumers' fingertips."

The technology has been available for years, and the DSLR market has been veering toward the general public ever since that cursed D was appended to it, so it's almost surprising that it's taking this long for touchscreens to infiltrate. But not really: DSLRs are proudly retro, built around mirror box and lens designs that date back decades, and covered in buttons to the point that, to an amateur, they are totally unapproachable. That said, the standard Canon and Nikon button layouts do work pretty well, and there are a lot of parameters you've got to deal with, so, well, here we are, staring down a Canon patent application for a basic touchscreen interface, in 2009:

Here's how it works, as interpreted by the Photography Bay:

1. Sliding your finger across the panel in a vertical direction changes aperture values.

2. Sliding your finger across the panel in a horizontal direction changes shutter speed.

Other features contemplated by the patent that may be enabled by touch entry through the LCD include the following settings:

Focus detection area
Exposure correction value
Flash adjustment correction value
Photometry mode (i.e., metering mode)
Drive mode
ISO value
Auto focus mode
White balance mode
Exposure correction value

In other words, the touchscreen would do everything your current 1970s aviation panel of a DSLR backside would, without the buttons.

In practice, I think a DSLR touchscreen would need to be supplementary. Given that a lot of DSLR adjustment is done with the photographer's eye in the viewfinder, the tactile feedback provided by buttons will be hard to replace; while it might make settings menus a bit easier to navigate, having a touchscreen won't do much good when you're trying to adjust aperture on the fly, or pull down your exposure time after a light flickers on. However wonderfully or horrifically it's executed, though, a touchscreen DSLR from a major manufacturer will happen, and probably soon. [Photography Bay]

Both the proof-of-concept video and the above illustration are by Japanese design house PROTOTYPE. Their giant hive display can begin a chain reaction when someone touches one iPod, or it's even possible to "drop" some items between iPods (I don't read that as full drag and drop capability).

Unfortunately, I have many more posts to write today, so I can't calculate the size of a 16x9 display made up of the 50 million or so iPhone/iPod touch handsets out there. But I'm sure that someone in the comments simultaneously loves math and hates their job enough to make this numeric factoid enter our existence. [Mongoose via technabob]

An accelerometer tied to a touchscreen. Why not, right? Seems like a logical progression after we saw this tiny tot of a netbook hacked to serve as a stylus-driven tablet.

It's no Courier, certainly, but as far as cheap, functional touchscreen tablets go, it's not half bad.

Update: Apologies to the creator, Brian, who wrote us with the original link for this post. I've since updated with the correct link, so go check it out! - j.l. [My Dell Mini Forums via Gadget Mix]

Now, touch screens are nothing new, obviously. The iPhone's an obvious example, as are the multitude of touchscreen handsets that have done their fair share of pinch zooming, screen swiping and touch typing in its wake.

Add in pressure sensitive gestures, however, and a new level of control descends on the venerable touchscreen. Again, Apple's been here before—at least with a 2007 patent—but nevertheless it's interesting to see a giant like Nokia weighing in with some ideas too (let's just hope they get their homework handed in before doomsday though, right?).

Like I said, the Apple one is going on two years old, and we haven't seen anything yet. Our expectations with these things must remain in the realm of the real and the grounded. Still, as we explained earlier, touchscreens are our future, and the added functionality provided by a pressure-sensitive screen seems an inevitability. Question is, who's going to be first to successfully drive this tech to where it really counts: Into the mainstream consumer market? [Unwired View via Engadget]

Using prerendered chunks of track and a digital ruler, you can shape the path of their virtual roller coaster, bobsled track or jet flight. (Should you draw something that's impossible to perform, the system will guide and correct you.)

As for the simulation itself, your fate is in the hands of an industrial robot arm from Kuka Robotics, like you've seen in car plants. We can only assume that the robot shakes you at high velocities until you feel dizzy or sick, all while fans occasionally blow air at your face to simulate velocity.

Several years back, I tested a similar build-your-own coaster ride at DisneyQuest. Some effects were actually pretty wonderful, but the customization was fairly limited and the simulators were far more typical. Knowing my well-being is in the grasp of a robot that could literally destroy me makes the whole prospect sounds a lot more exciting. [CNN]

As we've mentioned in the past, BumpTop isn't a new OS or shell replacement, it just adds a 3D workspace to your desktop. The $30 mulit-touch version of the software is available now, but you'll need to have Windows 7 (and a multi-touch tablet, laptop or all-in-one PC). The good news: we're going to see a bunch of those arrive alongside the new OS on October 22. [BumpTop via TechCrunch]

By now you've probably seen the major adjustments to WinMo's interface—the Titanium home screen, honeycomb-but-not-honeycomb start menu, enlarged contextual menus and improved scrolling. These were a help, to be sure, but they've generally been available by means of third-party shells like TouchWiz and TouchFlo 3D for years now. This build, on the other hand, fixes some core problems.

Take the iPhone-esque text-selection, which isn't just better than WinMo 6.1's—it's better than Android's. And the expandable tray, while far from revolutionary, cements up another little pocket of stylus dependency, and quite possibly one of the last. Interestingly, these minor improvements could amount to a pretty big deal: While its aging guts are still very apparent, shipping 6.5 as a totally finger-friendly OS could be enough to classify it as something more than a stopgap exercise in shit-polishing. [XDA via Slashgear]

Here's the vision: anything from a phone to a wall to a desk can be fitted with a small stethoscope sensor, which is able to register distinctive scratch vibrations that the human ear usually can't pick up, and read them as commands. Quick test: run your fingernail across your desk, and listen to the sound. Now, put your ear on your desk, and do the same. Not only is the sound louder the second time around—it's completely different, and much higher-pitched. This distinction is at the core of scratch input.

So different and unique are the sounds that the research team thinks they could design a system that could recognize gestures and shapes—like the letter "S", for example—allowing for relatively complex interaction with applications or devices. Think declining a call or pausing your music by scratching your thigh, or opening Expose by drawing two fingers across your desk. Below, a glimpse into our scratch-controlled future, which bears no small resemblance to footage from a containment cell in a mental health facility. [Wired]

If RIM's application is granted, it would allow a next-generation BlackBerry (something high-end like a Storm 3) to truly offer the best of both worlds when it comes to user input. [USPTO via Unwired View]

It's stupid if the suspicions raised by the skimpy information on the company's spectacularly premillennial site are warranted: Isn't there a reason previous tactile capacitive touchscreen covers didn't totally cover the virtual keys? Isn't it irritating to have permanent keyboard-shaped dimples etched to the face of the device regardless of whether you're typing or not? How does this Super Advanced Future Product cost less than five bucks? Why are there no pictures of this cover larger than about 50 pixels? These are questions you should probably consider before PayPalling your dollars in this company's direction.

It's genius, though, if it works as advertised: A semi-disposable cover that could improve the Storm's frustrating typing experience for a few dollars would sell well, and, for the especially coordinated, the prospect of eyes-free typing on the Storm—and later, the company says, on the iPhone—is exciting. And the nipple jokes! Oh, the nipple jokes. The Smartest Cover for the Storm is available in a pack of three for $14, and an 3GS-compatible iPhone version is "coming soon." [Smartest Cover via Intomobile]

One of Sony's Senior VPs said that the company is going to be releasing some Vaio notebooks that take advantage of touch capabilities "at the launch of Win 7," which is October 22nd.

In addition, we may see the movie and TV content that you can currently download on the PS3 coming over to Vaios as well. They're also discussing bringing games over, so you can pay for the casual games that have been converted from free online flash games for the console market, right on your laptop. How convenient! [Laptop Mag via Electronista]

The ClearPad 3000 is Synaptics' new top-of-the-line capacitive touchscreen, designed for high-end phones, gaming systems (PSP GoFaster?) and other fancy mobile gear. It has 48 sensing channels, so it'll pick up 10 fingers at once, and it scales up to 8-inch screens with narrower borders than their current ClearPad 2000 touchscreens (which senses two fingers and is used in HTC's Android handsets like the G1, among other phones).

Their other new touchscreen is the ClearPad 1000, a cheap capacitive designed to destroy crappy resistive touchscreens once and for all (read here for the difference between various kinds of touchscreens, though as a shorthand, phones with good touchscreens like the Pre, iPhone, Storm and G1 use capacitive). It only supports one finger, but it's supposed to be more accurate and work better with OLED screens.

Bottom line, touchscreens should get even better over the next year. [Synaptics]

The iPhone and iPod-related lawsuit, filed Wednesday, also includes Microsoft (Zune), Cowon (Curve), iRiver LG, high end speaker firm Bang & Olufsen, Philips and even iPhone clone manufacturer Meizu. There are 20 defendants named in all.

The lawsuit states that all 20 defendants have in one form or another abused a 2003 patent (left vague in the lawsuit) that "recognizes different swipe movements on a touchpad without having to provide visual feedback or to look at the player to understand what's taking place."

Tsera says it wants plain old money and "enhanced damages" from Apple for misuse of the patent. Good luck with that. [Apple Insider]

The most important piece of the Archos 9's hardware—its 9-inch resistive touchscreen—works quite well here. (It's on smaller screens where the difference between resistive and capacitive screen starts to stand out, but that's another story.) The rest of the hardware, barring the alarmingly creaky "kickstand," looks solid and attractive, especially considering the $650 price point. (No US release date yet, sadly).

Windows 7, as we know, is fairly well suited to touchscreens, though on this particular device I think the simple addition of smooth touch scrolling for IE would do wonders.

Sidenote: take a good look at this form factor, because it's more or less what the mythical "Apple Tablet" is said to look like. I'm torn: on the one hand, I'd love to play with one, and it could be nice browsing device for the sofa; on the other, I could see getting tired of holding my hands up to the screen all the time, since it's too big to thumb. Just sayin'! [ArchosFans]

The concept of Savant's system is similar to the iffy Domia X10 lighting controller we saw a few years ago: it takes an image of a room, and triggers certain commands when an item, like a light or a TV, is touched onscreen. This difference is, instead of relying on a programmable touch layer placed over a static photograph, Savant's Virtual Control (a temporary name, by the way) actually displays a dynamic digital photo of a room—or really, lots of rooms—which doesn't just control the various parts of your automated home; it reflects their states.

For example, if you switch off a light in your billiards room, (which you have, because you're clearly an extremely rich person), the light pictured on your Virtual Control will go dark too. A simple finger swipe takes you to another room—say, a your private library—so you can spin up your antique gramophone, or whatever.

There's no special tech voodoo here, just a bunch of preloaded image data, which Savant will send a photographer to collect and curate for you. And weirdly, although the system seems to be intended to manage your whole house, its 9-inch base station is tethered to one place by power and ethernet cables. So there's that. [CEPro]

The keyboard houses an entire Atom chipset inside its body which is separate from the touchpanel. But the touchpanel also uses the XP power to run Skype and MSN and serve as a media remote, among other things. Engadget Chinese said it worked pretty well, and if the video is any indication, the 5-inch, 800x480 screen uses a capacitive panel. The keyboard is rumored to launch sometime in June, in either wired or wireless-UWB models, but little is known beyond that. [Engadget]

The technology relies heavily on our cellphone being used to transfer data and payments—a philosophy that has already taken hold in countries like Japan and even in some major US airports. That's all well and good, but I'm looking for machines that automatically ring-up everything in my grocery cart. Seriously, it's the 21st century. I shouldn't have to wait for a cashier to slowly scan countless items for an old lady writing a check. [FastCompany]