Neonode

File:Neonode.png

Neonode

Neonode started out as a company producing mobile phones, founded in Sweden by Magnus Goertz and Thomas Eriksson. Currently Neonode Inc (NASDAQ: NEON), the parent company, focuses solely on the development, licensing and selling of the company's patented optical touch technology. The technology uses a web of light beams and was named zForce (zero force). It is used for mobile phones, tablets, e-readers and other devices featuring touch screens. The company operates in Sweden and Stockholm, with offices and retail representatives in Europe, Asia and the US.

History

Childhood friends Magnus Goertz and Thomas Eriksson founded Neonode in 2001 with the intent of creating a brand new type of mobile phone.

The first prototype was launched at the German IT-fair CeBit in March 2002 and yielded quite a bit of attention. Around Christmas the same year, a press conference was held at Fryshuset in Stockholm. The massive attention they received resulted in 20 000 mobile phones being pre-ordered. Using their two patented technologies, zForce and Neno, Neonode AB had developed three mobile phone models: N1, N1m and N2. They all shared a similar design, featuring a large optic touch screen in color.

Neonode AB was responsible for the development and marketing of the mobile phones. The company had about 30 employees and was situated on Biblioteksgatan, close to Stureplan in Stockholm. Production of the phones took place in Malaysia.

In November 2008, the company attempted issue equity, but failed. On December 9, 2008, Neonode declared bankruptcy. The company was immediately started up again by Thomas Eriksson. The business of the parent company Neonode Inc and Neonode Technologies AB, located in Sweden, which is the R&D headquarters, has since been the licensing of the zForce technology.

In 2009, the company released an updated version of the touch-technology zForce (zero force).

In 2010 the new product concepts ClearTouch and SAT (Selected Area Touch) were introduced, both based on the update zForce version. The same year, Sony launched their e-reader based on the zForce technology.

In 2010, zForce was awarded the title "Best New Technology of the Year" by the magazine Mobil.

2010 and 2011 the company has signed some global customers in the e-reader segment. The technology has since developed and is now implemented into a variety of touch devices such as tablets and automotive appliances.

Year	units sold	Turnover (M $)	Net results (M $)
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006		1.64	-5.2
2007	31 000	3.13	-49.6
2008	20 000
2009	0	0
2010		2.64

Technology

zForce: The technology is based on light fields. As the light is interrupted by fingers or objects, the system notes the position. Other objects than fingers are therefore possible to use, since the screen responds to any type of material.´

NN1001: On 03Jan12, Neonode announced a new optical touch controller NN1001, developed in cooperation with TI, that tracks any high-speed multi-touch gesture with any object (finger, gloved finger and passive pen). NN1001 connects to any microcontroller or application processor with a high-speed SPI interface.

Former products

Neno Neno was Neonodes custom graphical user interface (GUI) controlling the Microsoft Windows CE operating system. Neonode devices ran Neno from a removable Secure Digital card.

N2

File:Neonode-n2.jpg

The Neonode N2 mobile phone

• Operating system: Windows CE 6.0 Pro
• Display: 176 × 220 Pixels (Width × Height), 16-bit Colour TFT
• Audio: Stereo 48 kHz playback
• Memory Storage: miniSD / miniSDHC
• Connectivity: GSM Quad band: GSM850,GSM900, GSM1800, GSM1900 MHz, Bluetooth, GPRS
• Size: 47×77×14,7 mm (W×H×T)
• Weight: Approximately 60g
• Imaging: 2 Megapixel Fixed Focus Camera, Still pictures, Video play-back (MPEG, WMV), Video Recording (MPEG-4) (not yet, but planned in further updates)
• Messaging: SMS, Support for long SMS, MMS, Predictive text input, T9 (English, Swedish, German, Dutch, Spanish, Norwegian, French and Greek), Call history (dialed, received and missed calls)
• Audio: Audio player (MP3, WAV, WMA), stereo 48 kHz playback, Custom ring tones (MP3, WAV, WMA), Alarm application
• Entertainment: Windows Media Player, Internet Explorer (web browser), 2 integrated games.
• Third-party software.
• Software development environment.

N1m

• Launched: Q1 2005
• Operating system: Windows CE 5.0 and 4.2
• Display: 176 × 220 Pixels (Width × Height), 16-bit Colour TFT
• Audio: Stereo 48 kHz playback
• Memory storage: SD card up to 2 GB
• Connectivity: GSM Triband: GSM900, GSM1800, GSM1900 MHz), USB 1.1
• Size: 88 × 52 × 21 (H × W × D)
• Weight: 94g
• Imaging: Megapixel Camera (1024x1024), Imageviewer, Videoplayer (MPEG 1, MPEG 4, WMV)
• Messaging: Short message service, Support for long SMS, Multimedia Messaging Service, Predictive text input, T9 (English, Swedish, German, Spanish, French and Russian), Call history (dialed, received and missed calls)
• Audio: Audio player (MP3, WAV, WMA), stereo 48 kHz playback, Custom ring tones (MP3, WAV, WMA), Alarm application
• Entertainment: Windows Media Player, Internet Explorer (web browser), Games, third-party software downloadable
• Organiser: Calendar, Tasks, Phonebook with storage capacity of 1000 contacts, Add an individual picture for each contact, Synchronize with your PC using ActiveSync (requires extra software free of charge from Microsoft)
• Miscellaneous: Large touch-screen, On-screen keyboard, Screen saver, Vibrator, Calculator, Updates available at the Neonode website, USB memory functionality, use N1 as portable storage device. A generic positive gesture (slide left to right) and negative gesture (slide right to left) were used consistently through the interface to unlock, go back to home screen, etc.

External links

1. Official web site
2. Unofficial forum for neonode users
3. Unofficial German fanpage for neonode users
4. Unofficial German forum for neonode users
5. Site to download and upload themes, wallpapers, videos and ringtones for neonode phones
6. Neonode optical touch controller Announcement