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Samsung Electronics introduced the first mobile phones to support touch feedback today. The SPH-G1000 (see image) and SCH-G100 implement VibeTonz technology from a company called Immersion, which previously brought force feedback (also known as haptics) to console gaming.

With VibeTonz, you can download and play mobile games with orchestrated touch sensations to the new handsets. Haptics are implemented through the application development process just like any other feature, such as a sound.

Immersion’s VibeTonz System extends tactile feedback way beyond the capabilities of your typical vibrating cell phone. With it an application developer can independently control both vibration strength and frequency for what the company calls high-fidelity touch sensations.

Inner Workings
To enable this level of control you must replace the usual "on/off" pager motor in a handset with Immersion's hardware and control software.

The developer enables touch sensitively through a VibeTonz System SDK (software development kit) and a composition tool that addresses a handset-embedded haptic player. The player is what tells the phone when an how much to vibrate.

Immersion offers a reference specification called the VibeTonz Actuator Drive Circuit to show manufacturers how to make what the company calls minor electronic changes to drive a vibration actuator (the mechanism that vibrates) using the VibeTonz System.

Game Time
During a demonstration we received of one of the new Samsung phones the system worked as advertised. It varied the feel of vibrations slightly throughout a racing game. This software was most likely the same game referenced by a Samsung executive in the company's joint announcement with Immersion.

He said, "During an auto racing game, for example, the mobile phone vibrates as the player's car bumps over gravel or other unpaved surfaces, adding realism to virtual reality."

We found game play to be neither real nor virtual. VibeTonz added enough of a new dimension to the experience, however, to catch our attention and wonder exactly how far Immersion could take the technology.

As Immersion VP of mobility John Grundy accurately states, VibeTonz can "make the mobile gaming experience more fun and exciting."

Developers can use haptics to set their applications apart from the pack. "With the high growth of mobile gaming, operators, handset manufacturers, and developers can benefit from using VibeTonz technology to help differentiate their products and add value to new and existing content," said Grundy.

Future
Down the road, Immersion plans to make VibeTonz a more integral part of the mobile handset. For instance, you could embed the technology into a phone's user interface to help people navigate their phones through touch when their eyes are otherwise occupied.

Or, perhaps, VibeTonz might someday let the end-user associate a particular vibration with an individual as you can today with a ringtone. That way the consumer could know exactly who’s calling when the sound of his handset is turned off, in a meeting or at a movie for example.

New Phones
The Samsung SPH-G1000 and SCH-G100 will ship exclusively in Korea. In addition to VibeTonz, both slide-up phones use a design that allows people to use them in portrait mode and play games in landscape mode. For game play, one hand controls an eight-direction multikey, and the other hand controls dedicated game keys.

The phones also sport a mixed graphics capability that displays both 2D and 3D images simultaneously, in addition to a high-resolution color display. There's a 1.3 mega-pixel camera and stereo speakers as well.

A phone for the U.S. market with VibeTonz touch feedback is slated to ship later this month.