????我們和自己的智能手機早已親密無間，幾乎不加思索就會用手指在手機屏幕上點觸及滑動。現在，日本的一家手機制造商正在設法讓我們與智能手機的接觸更加親密，差不多通過擠壓、擠捏手機就能發出指令。

????日本最大的移動運營商NTT-DoCoMo最近在東京展示了一款手機，這款手機不僅可以對通常的屏幕觸摸做出反應，而且還能對施加在手機邊緣的壓力做出反應。他們稱之為Grip UI用戶界面。

????設計目的是便于用戶在用一只手的情況下（比如在地鐵上用一只手拉住車廂內的柱子時）也能控制智能手機。這是一系列觸控式新興科技產品（甚至可彎曲的手機）中最新推出的功能，這些產品不久有望商業化，以此利用人們與生俱來的、在操縱有觸覺感知能力、而且反應靈敏的物體方面的喜愛。迪斯尼研究（Disney）中心匹茲堡實驗室的伊凡?普珀雷夫說:“壓力感知是手機行業里的一個非常令人感興趣的研究方向，因此這是很了不起的技術。”他是世界上觸覺學領域的主要研究人員之一。

????Docomo的這款基于安卓操作系統的手機周身鑲嵌了270個感應條，從而使用戶光憑擠壓手機邊框就能完成至少四個有用的操作。比如，用一只手的所有五個手指緊握這款智能手機的兩側，就能使原先處于休眠模式的手機屏幕解鎖啟動。用兩個手指在手機兩側的中間部位擠捏一下，就相當于按下“后退”按鈕。這款手機在東京的日本電子高新科技聯展上首次亮相時，其一名展示者解釋說：“對于那些你無法按壓的圖標而言，可以轉而使用抓握的方式來實現控制。”

????Docomo不知道這款手機什么時候可能會投產。但像這款手機那樣柔韌的電子產品可能還具有其他有益的用途。普珀雷夫稱，通過指尖擠壓就能控制任何手持式電子產品，這還只是一個開始。10年前，普珀雷夫曾與德國設計師卡斯滕?史維茨西及日本設計師森英次郎進行過合作，嘗試為索尼（Sony）研制出世界上第一個可彎曲電子產品的原型。他們調查研究了俗稱“Gummi”（德文意思是橡膠）的獨特構想。它是一款可彎曲、而且尺寸只有信用卡般大小的電子產品。

????要想點擊，只需雙手握住這款電子產品，讓它彎曲即可。這款產品成為世界各地有可能面市的可彎曲型手機的典范，比如去年首次露面的諾基亞（Nokia）Kinetic手機原型。這款諾基亞手機采用了由三星（Samsung）開發的柔性有機發光顯示屏（OLED）技術。三星稱，這項技術將會在2013年年初引入市場。它的構想是利用這些最近成功商業化的纖薄有機屏幕所固有的柔韌性。

????到目前為止，最先進的柔性OLED屏幕非常纖薄（相當于人類一根頭發的寬度），而且柔性非常強。這種彩色屏幕播放流媒體視頻的時候，甚至可以把屏幕繞在一支鉛筆上。

????未來的諸多應用可能包括結合由英國公司Plastic Logic制造的可彎曲型電子產品。或者結合由加拿大皇后大學（Queen's University）人類媒體實驗室（the Human Media Lab）的研究人員利用電子紙研制出的一款被稱為“紙手機”（paperphone）的可彎曲手機。相關研究人員表示，當在這款“紙手機”的邊角或側邊處彎曲或折疊時，就能啟動智能手機的各種不同功能。

????We are already pretty intimate with our smartphones, poking and swiping their screens almost without second thought. Now a Japanese phone maker is making the case we go a step further, literally squeezing and pinching them to do our bidding.

????The country's biggest mobile carrier, NTT Docomo, showed off a mobile phone in Tokyo recently that responds not only to the usual screen touches but also to pressure applied at its edges. They call it Grip UI.

????The idea is to make controlling a smart phone easier with one hand, while, for example, hanging by one hand from a pole on the subway. It is the latest in a range of emerging technology haptic gadgets -- and even bendable phones -- that promise commercialization soon and that exploit our innate love of manipulating tactile, responsive objects. "Pressure sensitivity is a very interesting direction for phones so this is great technology," says Ivan Poupyrev one of the world'd leading researchers into haptics at Disney's (DIS) labs in Pittsburg.

????Docomo's Android-based mobile has 270 sensors embedded into the body of the phone allowing its user to execute at least four useful operations just by squeezing the bezel. Gripping the side of the smart phone with all five fingers will unlock the screen from sleep mode, for example. While pinching the sides at the middle with two fingers is equivalent to pressing the 'back' button. "For the icons you can't press, you can grip instead," explains a demonstrator at the phone's first outing at a Tokyo trade show.

????Docomo doesn't know when the phone might go into production. But malleable gadgets, like this one, could have other useful applications. Being able to control any hand-held with a squeeze of the fingertips is just a start says Poupyrev who teamed up with a German designer Carsten Schwesig and Japanese designer Eijiro Mori, to build one of the world's first prototype flexible electronic devices for Sony (SNE) a decade ago. They were investigating the unique concept of a bendable credit-card-sized device nicknamed Gummi.

????To make a click you just grasped it with two hands and bent it. It became the model worldwide for potential flexible phones such as Nokia's (NOK) "Kinetic" prototype that debuted last year. The Nokia phone uses flexible organic light-emitting display (OLED) technology developed by Samsung -- a technology it says it will bring to market early 2013. The idea is exploit the flexibility inherent in these recently commercialized thin, organic screens.

????So far the most advanced flexible OLED screens are so thin, about the width of a human hair, and so flexible the color display can be rolled around a pencil while streaming video.

????Future applications might include combining bendable electronics as manufactured by British firm Plastic Logic or a flexing phone made from electronic paper created by Canadian researchers at the Human Media Lab at Queen's University dubbed paperphone. When bent or folded at its corners or sides the differing functions of a smartphone are brought to light say the researchers.