Sony applies for 'head control' patent to frustrate non-verbal communicators

The company formerly known as Sony Ericsson applied for a patent in 2010 that's yet to be granted, but you never know, one day it might wind up in a handset near you. Having recently introduced the "floating touch" Xperia Sola that doesn't require your hands to make contact with the display, the next logical step is to make the whole thing controlled just with the movement of your head. Wearing a Bluetooth earpiece with a motion sensor, you then map a custom motion onto a phone action, so shaking your head could answer a call, nodding up and down ends it and going from side-to-side will fire up an app. Designed for when it's not safe to jab at your phone (i.e. driving) we think it's a pretty neat idea, unless you're the sort who, even on the phone, nods in agreement to what the other person is... oh, nope, hung up again.