Welcome a new contender in the race for the best in mobile device technology. Apple may have the iPhone 5S, iPhone 6 and low-cost iPhone in the works; Samsung is still going strong with its Galaxy Note 3 on the way; and Google has enough devices like the Google Glass rolling out soon that it needn't worry too much, either. But Tokyo's Ishikawa Oku Laboratory is now developing technology that may very well leave these giants "talking to the hand" with its forthcoming "palm phone."
Via research being done at the University of Tokyo, new technology is being developed that would not only be able to literally beam a phone's display onto your hand (or any other surface) through a unique camera employing dual rotating mirrors and high-speed vision. It would also allow the user to "feel" the phone or device's keyboard while using it ... without the phone or device itself actually being there.
"[Team leader Masatoshi] Ishikawa says the system can detect the movement of a three-dimensional object every two milliseconds," ABC News reports.
"Put simply, the high-speed vision allows the program to track moving objects, so users would be free to walk with the phone image in palm, without the display ever shifting."
Ishikawa continued that the technology his team and he are developing utilizes ultrasonic wave emitters, which is what allows the user to have the sensation of an actual keyboard in the palm of his hand without there being one present. He said that the sensation is that of a 3-gram (0.1- ounce) object.
"You won't need a keyboard, you won't need to carry a smartphone, or a computer," Ishikawa said. "You can make a call without anything."
This brand of truly next-gen technology may seem to be something out of a sci-film or novel, but Ishikawa says that what he's actually working on is far more advanced than anything we've seen imagined by the likes of Hollywood.
Ishikawa also believes that the ability for users to make a call with only the palm of their hand will be a reality in as few as one or two years.
In the past, Ishikawa has used high-speed vision technology to create a robot hand that could beat any player at rock-scissors-paper by processing 1,000 frames per second, allowing the robot hand to move an incredible 33 times faster than a human. This allowed the robot hand to stay ahead of its human opponent 100 percent of the time in order to win.
And that's not all.
Ishikawa has used his high-speed vision technology to create a robot finger that can dribble a ball faster than what a human eye can see. He's also built a batting robot that can nail any ball within the strike zone, every time without fail.
This latest palm phone technology Ishikawa is creating should allow for both phone dialing/calling from one's palm and as well as the projection of 3-D images. Though the technology itself may be developed much sooner, Ishikawa believes a working model of the palm phone will be available for public consumption in five or six years.
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