When we visited Kyocera at CEATEC Japan last week, we had a chance to try out the company’s ‘New Feeling Touch Panel.’ It’s a haptic feedback touchscreen that makes pressing a flat surface feel like pushing a regular button.

The demonstration included a variety of buttons, such as a jelly type, clickable, or buzzer style buttons. The buttons can also be assigned levels of depths, meaning that you could do a half push or a full push with two assigned levels. In the demo we saw (see video below) we got to try seven levels of depth, which was amazingly cool.

According to Kyocera, this new touch panel “uses vibration to excite the nerves in the finger to illicit a quasi tactile feeling.” The screen uses a piezoelectric element to create this tactile feeling.

Of course, one of the current knocks against many of today’s touchscreen devices is that they lack a tactile feeling. My personal pet peeve is the virtual keyboard on an iPad, which I find tricky to use. Whether or not a technology like this could actually improve that experience is not clear to me, but I have my fingers crossed that someday it might

For more information, check out Kyocera’s release below.

Kyocera New Feeling Touch Panel

Sharp's 3D Phone

CEATEC Japan 2011, Japan’s annual IT and electronics trade show, isn’t until next week but many companies are already teasing what they will bringing to the show. While Penn-Olson will be there bringing coverage from the floor, a few early mobile hardware announcements have already piqued my interest.

There are no doubt some great smartphone handset manufacturers from outside Japan. Samsung and HTC continue to produce popular phones with big, beautiful screens and fast processors. But when it comes to risky hardware innovation, the sort that may be too wacky to be useful or just may change the world, I always look to Japan.

Japan is the home of many mobile firsts, either in development or commercial deployment. While the jury is still out on some of this technology, smartphone innovations include 3D screens, 3D cameras, waterproof handsets, wireless charging, 1seg (mobile terrestrial audio/video), and Mobile FeliCa (similar to NFC for contactless payments etc.).

NTT Docomo's Sensor Case

At CEATEC next week a few more mobile firsts will be debuted. As already reported, NTT Docomo will show off a series of smartphone cases with the ability to measure things like radiation and body fat. Docomo rival, KDDI, and handset manufacturer Kyocera have teamed up to develop an entirely different technology.

The two companies have come up with an advanced speaker system which may change the way people take phone calls. Compared to current phones which blast sound directly into the listener’s ear this new technology will allow phones to automatically adjust the method of noise projection based on the listener’s condition. For example, if the user has ear plugs in, such as a construction worker, the phone can detect the ear canal blockage and direct sound more directly through a subtle vibration of the ear itself. This would effectively allow the phone to be used while wearing earplugs. KDDI has also stated phone use over top of headphones as another use case.

KDDI and Kyocera's New Speaker Technology

Consumer implementation of the advanced speaker system is expected for fiscal 2012. Currently the necessary hardware requires less than 0.6mm of space. This is small enough to fit in most any smartphone, although I expect it will debut in a Kyocera handset first. The trade show will be the public’s first hands on with the technology and the manufacturers will no doubt be gauging consumer interest.

CEATEC Japan 2011 runs from October 4-8 at the Makuhari Messe. Visit the trade show homepage for more details and stay tuned to Penn-Olson for updates throughout the week.

[Images: Engadget, Asahi, KDDI]

This September KDDI will begin selling the Mi-Look, a mobile phone created by manufacturer Kyocera, which aims to help people in Japan take care of elderly family members.

The Mi-Look handset features speakerphone capabilities and large, simple buttons that should be easy to understand, even for older people not accustomed to technology. It is unique in that it sends information to an off-site caretaker. The device has pedometer and GPS functions as well, capable of sending data to the caretaker over email. It also comes with a cradle mount, complete with a ‘human presence sensor’ that can also send data about the person’s movement.

One of the most interesting functions is an emergency strap near the bottom, which when pulled will trigger a buzzer sound as well as an email alert to the caretaker. For more details about the Mi-Look, check out the video below.

The problem of Japan’s aging population is no secret, but it is giving rise to some interesting ideas about how to best care for seniors. Japanese companies also need to adjust to an aging consumer market, so solving such problems should help them compete in the marketplace as well.

Kyocera is known for designing unconventional handsets. You may remember back in May when we got a look at the company’s dual-screen Echo handset that switches to ‘tablet mode’ when it’s expanded.

[KDDI via Techon]

The two screens allow the Echo to run in normal mode when folded, as well as tablet mode when opened up. You can also take advantage of the two screens to run different applications on either side, or even to browse two websites at once. The map function is impressive in tablet mode, giving a far greater surface area so that you don’t have to squint.

While Kyocera is a Japanese company, there appears to be no immediate plan to bring the Echo to Japan. Check out out video below for a demonstration.