Cell Phone with Feeling

April 8, 2005

Now there’s a cell phone that features a very personal note: Siemens has launched the CX70 Emoty on the market, a phone that lets its owners express their emotions and communicate these feelings to friends. The mobile phone contains a several characters that the user can give a variety of moods with the push of a key. Integrated sensors then allow to control the intensity of the feelings conveyed by the three characters — Laura, Joey and Wobble. The 3D characters can express ten emotions, including happiness, love, sadness and anger. The sensors in the phone’s housing register when the phone is touched, when pressure is applied to it and when it’s shaken.

This is how users transmit their moods to the Emoty characters and increase or diminish an emotion’s intensity — by stroking, pressing or shaking the cell phone. The mobile phone user can then send the animation as an emotional MMS (Multimedia Message), together with text.

The phone also is equipped with a camera featuring an attachable flash. An advanced, three-dimensional graphics module makes games especially realistic. The Java-based module gives spatial depth to the display, turning the cell phone into a games console when used with Siemens 3D Rallye, for example. More games and software applications can be loaded using a 3D Download Assistant.

The phone also has a push to talk function, which allows a user to simultaneously contact a number of other people. Siemens recently collaborated with Ericsson to ensure that the two companies’ push to talk systems are compatible on the basis of an open standard. This step greatly increases the number of mobile phones that can use the new form of communication.