Fujitsu is hard at work to bring smartphones to the lucrative, untapped elderly demographic.
Given the catchy name F-12D, the handset is part of the Japanese company's Raku-Raku line of devices. "Raku-Raku" translates as "ease to use," with the whole product line designed to simplify high tech for elderly customers.
The F-12D runs on an unknown version of Android, and Fujitsu is working closely with Google to design a new interface to keep the touch screen and icons from becoming overwhelming to users.
Making touch accessible again
Part of the user interface that Fujitsu fixed is the handset's ability to ignore "false touches" on the screen. For example, simply tapping on an icon or link will only highlight it, with a second touch required to actually launch the app.
The second touch is facilitated by a clickable screen, providing some physical feedback and ensuring that light, accidental touches don't confuse both the phone and its user.
RIM's Blackberry Storm line took a similar approach, but clickable touch screens never quite caught on with mass market appeal.
The smartphone is currently only scheduled to release in Japan, arriving in stores this August. Fujitsu also says that it is eager to bring the F-12D to foreign markets though, so it may not be too long before quite literally everyone and their grandparent will have a smartphone.
Via: Computer World
