SlashGear has received a press release and an internal document about Onyx, a collaborative cellphone project by touch-sensor specialists Synaptics and industrial design wizards Pilotfish. Unlike many concepts, where a sleek, headline grabbing shell either runs standard software or nothing at all, or a new platform runs on bland reference hardware, part of the charm of Onyx comes from the harmony of the software/hardware interface. In fact it's this interface - and your interaction with it - that potentially makes Onyx the product of 2006.

"The Onyx phone is a breakthrough illustration of how advances in interface technology and collaborative design will drive the future of mobile interactions and services" [Clark Foy, Synaptics]

Synaptics and Pilotfish see Onyx as a tool assisting OEMs in visualizing a fundamentally new form of user interface. They might not put it in so many words, but they're part of a new breed of technology company that recognizes that as functionality in mobile devices expands then the interface by which we access it must evolve too. The pool of power-users willing and capable of deciphering endless menus and sub-menus remains a minority amongst normal consumers, and if the latter are to be persuaded to upgrade for reasons other than "world's thinnest" then it'll take more than redesigned iconography to do it.

As a Tablet PC user I'm well aware of the added intuitiveness that more naturalistic methods of interaction with a device brings; that ClearPad apparently harnesses the accuracy of an active digitizer with the convenience of a passive one, coupled with multi-touch recognition, hints at even greater involvement between user and machine. I'd go so far as to say that advanced touch and gesture technology will be the interface that so many futurologists have promised speech recognition would be: less socially intrusive than speech and capable of discrete haptic feedback. It's a lot to live up to, and SlashGear will be first in line to tell you just whether Onyx - and the technology behind it - can manage it.