Saturday, September 11, 2010

Touch? no no no

Well, looks like my definition of touch is a little different. I am talking about touch phones here or touch devices.

I classify touch as anything that requires me to just touch and do nothing else. I dont want to use any other sense organ. Hence, according to my definition, most of the so called touch phones, touch players dont belong to that category at all, as most of the times I have to see things to do things. And as I keep writing this article, I think about touch phones for the blind and here are a few sites I stumbled upon.

http://www.concept-phones.com/cool-concepts/btouch-concept-touchscreen-mobile-phone-blind/

http://www.yankodesign.com/2009/06/15/touchphone-for-the-blind/

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/googles-phone-apps-for-the-blind-and-everyone-else/

The last one in the list above has this line - "They hope the technology will also be useful to anyone who needs to operate a phone without looking at the screen, like drivers.". I love this one as I feel the need for touch the most while I am driving. With the current phone/player I have, I can change the volume, change the song without looking at the phone. I would like to do a lot more but, like being able to select different playlists, change the equaliser settings - all this without a look. No wonder that normal people would flock to use such applications/technologies.


Warning - It is not safe to have our hands do something other than driving when on the road and music in our ears makes it even more unsafe.

Neither are the warnings going to stop nor are the number of 'touch' devices that are going to be manufactured.

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