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A closer look at the bendy Nokia Kinetic Device

Categories: Nokia
By: , IntoMobile
Tuesday, November 29th, 2011 at 2:07 PM

While we got a tantalizing glimpse at the Nokia Kinetic Device at Nokia World, we didn’t really get to dive into it because of all the hustle and bustle going on. Well, at the Nokia Research Center in Sunnyvale, Calif., we were able to handle this prototype and it looks very interesting.

It’s definitely a prototype, so if this ever came to market, it would look entirely different. The Nokia Kinetic Device is built around the concept of physically bending and twisting the phone to interact with the content on it. Why would you want to do that? Well, when you’re manipulating a touchscreen, you’re going to block some of your screen real estate and that doesn’t happen with this type of device.

Additionally, the Nokia Kinetic Device could be more durable than existing devices, so you wouldn’t have to worry about dropping your phone. The analog controls of twisting and bending also gives you granularity of controls and that could really come in handy when playing a racing game.

I played with the Kinetic Device for a few minutes and it was responsive, although you do have to learn a new set of input methods. This is a research project for a reason though, so I wouldn’t expect something exactly like this to land on retail stores but elements of this could really augment the mobile experience. Check out the video below and let us know what you think.

About The Author

Marin Perez

Marin Perez has torture tested cell phones and smartphones for industry leaders like CNET and InformationWeek. He remembers when 4G was just a screen on PowerPoint presentations and is fascinated with the amount of innovation out there. Marin has spent a lot of time with BlackBerry and Android but he finally broke down a bought an iPhone to see what all the hype's about. He also has too many tablets.

  • http://www.ringcentral.com/phone-service/index.html Phone Service

    This phone is interesting. Just a bit skeptical if it will last from the bending and twisting.

  • http://twitter.com/jmangotweets JMango

    Some interesting innovatons there from Nokia.  The UI is pretty creative and sounds pretty intuitive.  The flexible interface will also definitely open new horizons for developers specially when they get to implement a touchscreen with the device.