Danny Gorog10 January 2008, 1:38 PM
A technology developed by the British Ministry of Defence could be the next addition to the iPhone: it's a speaker that can be applied across the surface of anything -- even, say, the entire plateau of the iPhone's touch screen.
A technology developed by the British Ministry of Defence could be the next addition to the iPhone: it's a speaker that can be applied across the surface of anything -- even, say, the entire plateau of the iPhone's touch screen.
"SurfaceSound" was initially developed by the British government while trying to find ways of dampening sound inside military helicopters. While researching that goal, it chanced upon the opposite effect entirely: a technology that allowed sound to be conducted along and projected from surfaces.
Given criticism over the puny volume of the iPhone's tiny speakers, the Distributed Mode Loudspeaker (DML) might just be the next technology -- after 3G telephony -- to find its way into a future iPhone (and the rest of Apple's soon-to-be-announced lineup of multi-touch capable devices.)
DML, a technology developed by Cambridge-based company called NXT, based on the British Government research, means that any surface can effectively be covered with a layer that lets it produce sound.
The technology is also able to make a surface vibrate when touched, with different frequencies according to location or the finger used to touch. This could be an ideal way for Apple to provide tangible feedback when the iPhone's on-screen keyboard is being used.
While you might not be familiar with NXT technology it's already available in mass-market products like the Gateway One desktop PC and TDK XA-10 compact portable speakers.
The Gateway One uses a product called SoundVu (developed in collaboration with NXT licensee Authentic) that produces high quality audio from the PC's front polished surface, while the TDK XA-10 uses SurfaceSound (sometimes referred to as 'flat panel' loudspeakers) technology to deliver high quality audio from speakers that weigh a mere 69 grams.
According to NXT, DML technologies 'provide unique ways of bringing sound to a multitude of products and applications and are based on harnessing the natural modes of vibration in a panel to reproduce sound.
NXT panels operate in an entirely different way from conventional loudspeakers, by 'initiating and exploiting multiple, organised bending resonances in the panel. This distributed-mode behaviour results in complex vibration, which in turn creates the sound you hear.'
Another technology also developed by NXT, called Dispersive Signal Technology (DST) has been applied to develop touch screens that use 'bending waves to sense the position of a finger or stylus.'
According to NXT, DST offers many favourable touch-screen characteristics like 'exceptional optical characteristics, finger (non-stylus) based input, is made from a durable glass surface and features built-in palm rejection.
Currently DST technology has been licensed exclusively to 3M Touch Systems but a combination of DST and DML technologies could produce the ultimate screen for the iPhone - one that combined the benefits of touch technology and produced Hi-Fi quality sound from a pocket sized device.