Inventor of Touchscreen Technology for Mobile Devices Receives Meffys Outstanding Contribution Award
Award celebrates founder of technology behind today’s touchscreen smartphones
London, 22 June 2010 – The Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF) has awarded this year’s prestigious Meffys Outstanding Contribution award to Dr. Andrew Hsu, the inventor of modern touchscreen technology for mobile handsets.
The winner was announced as part of the sold-out Meffys Gala Awards dinner held in London’s Grand Connaught Rooms last night. The Outstanding Contribution award recognises the individuals behind the scenes responsible for exceptional innovation in business models or special breakthroughs in mobile media technology.
Dr. Andrew Hsu created the complex technology “Transparent Projected Capacitive Touch Screen” which is the basis for the modern touchscreen handset. Dr. Hsu’s groundbreaking technology has revolutionised the mobile media landscape, turning the modern day smartphone into a key media discovery and consumption touch point. In 1999, Dr Hsu filed his ground-breaking patent and spent the next seven years trying to convince the industry to adopt the technology. In 2006, handset manufacturer LG trialled it for the first time on their Prada phone, predating the iPhone. Dr Hsu’s employer since 1996, Synaptics, in the Silicon Valley, is one of the leading suppliers of Projected Capacitive Touch technology to handset manufacturers worldwide.
Andrew Bud, MEF Global Chairman, commented: “I am delighted to announce Dr. Andrew Hsu as the winner of this year’s Meffys Outstanding Contribution Award. This touchscreen technology, which can be found throughout today’s new generation of smartphones, has transformed the mobile media industry, driving the discovery and take up of applications and fuelling mobile internet usage.”
Dr. Andrew Hsu commented: ”It is a great honor to accept this year’s Meffy for Outstanding Contribution. The ClearPad capacitive touchscreen technology, beyond its ability to improve industrial design, enables users to interact with their handset in ways not possible with earlier technologies. This use of touch gestures now enables all of us to quickly and intuitively interact with mobile content and cloud computing services with our mobile handsets.”
Previous winners of the Outstanding Contribution Award:
2009: Dr Antero Taivalsaari and Mark VandenBrink – Pioneers of mobile applications business
2008: Greg Clayman, Gordon Gould and Alex LeVine – Founders of ‘Upoc’ for the creation of the first mobile communities
2007: Alain Rossman, Chuck Parrish and Bruce Martin – Founders of WAP
2006: Dr Jim Brailean – Pioneer of mobile video
2005: Taneli Armanto – Put the game ‘snake’ on the mobile phone
2004: Vesa Matti Paananen – Inventor of the ringtones business model