Touchscreen joysticks are quite common and enable a pretty precise navigation on the screen. But, the problem with such a joystick system is that while you are using it, you are unable to get a full-screen view. Now, a research group at Keio University has devised a new solution through which, you can convert your smartphone’s camera into a joystick.
Touchscreen joystick is particularly annoying when you are using a smartphone with a smaller display. On a 3.5-inch display, if you use two fingers to, say, play a game, that obstructs a large part of the screen from your view. The 3-Axis analog joystick may prove to be very handy in such a scenario.
This is how the 3-Axis analog joystick works. It is basically an elastic device which makes use of GelForce and is placed over the smartphone’s front-facing camera. On this elastic device are different markers which are detectable by the camera. So when you use the device, the camera registers any changes in the markers and translates that into on-screen movements.
With the help of this, a user playing a game on a smartphone can tool an actual physical, and quite sleek and nifty, joystick rather than using the conventional method of touchscreen navigation which can take away most of the fun from a game. The cool part about this is that you can also place this analog joystick on the rear camera and use it in much the same way.
For now, this is just an idea which is fresh out of research. Whether or not we will see it in future smartphone still is a long way to go since game developers will have to agree to add support for it if it is to become a success.
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