Tokyo, Feb. 2: Tired of pushing all those buttons on your cell phone? Japanese handsets slated to hit stores next month are designed to solve that problem: They respond to shakes, tilts and jiggles. The mobile phones manufactured by Japanese electronics maker Sharp Corp for Vodafone KK, the Japan unit of the British mobile giant, come equipped with a tiny motion-control-sensor, a co-mputer chip that recognises and responds to movement.

Just jerk your cell phone in the air in a variety of patterns made of up of two simple moves — combining left, right or top, down movements — to program your phone in nine different ways to scroll or jump to e-mail or other features. It takes a bit of practice. In a demonstration for reporters on Monday, there were repeated problems getting the phone to respond to the left and then right shake although it was supposed to jump to the game menu.

It’s far easier just to endure the hassle of pushing buttons. The sensor, made by Aichi Steel Corp, not only detects the direction toward which the cell phone is moving but also the speed and force with which it’s being jerked around. This makes for new kinds of gaming fun.

In The House of the Dead, the mobile version of the Sega Corp game, players can actually aim their cell phone in various directions like a gun to shoot the zombies who appear to be coming from all sides in the display.

Yeah, are we going to see people "break-dancing" on the sidewalk to dial their friends!

<--technology dork
sweet! is there a picture? where did you get this article

lol

yeah i saw that on G4 tech tv it was funny...really exept for the "novelty" factor, it dosen't fly high. i stick to good old voice recon.

-telephone on.

japan whats will they come up with next?

Well it will be quiet entertaining to watch people use these new phones, but I`ll stay with just a everyday mobile at the moment!

I picked it from Yahoo News, they didn't provide a picture though.

Vodafone is not giving a price or sales target for this handset, which will be sold only in Japan for now. It said it's working on other kinds of games for the Japanese handset using movement but did not give details.

You can also make the sensor work to move your cursor by tilting the phone towards the direction you want the cursor to go.