Shake Your Phone Before It Shakes You

A new technology could allow cellphone users to check their messages or battery level just by shaking the phone. The phones could be made to feel and sound like they are full of liquid or balls, for instance, reports New Scientist. The software takes advantage of increasingly common motion sensing tools in phones. Messages from different callers could each have their own sound.

Nokia has released a programming kit to help people develop software to use the accelerometers in their phones, making applications easier to develop, says lead researcher John Williams. Shaking in different directions could make the phone reveal different information, he says. Williams, at Glasgow University, calls his system Shoogle, a Scottish word for “shake.” (More cell phones stories.)