June 10 - 1:40pm EDT   Immersion on Tuesday announced it has joined the Symbian Foundation, giving other members access to the company's TouchSense haptics technology. The TouchSense API is available for free to programmers who are developing applications for the Symbian platform and cellphone makers can separately license Immersion's haptic technology. Haptic feedback such as Immersion's theoretically improve touchscreen interaction by producing confirmation of a virtual button press with vibration and sound. [full story]

April 24 - 3:15pm EDT   Virtual Reality Feedback head and inventor Craig Thorner this week sued Sony's PlayStation divisions in Japan and the US, as well as PDP/Electro Source and multiple attorneys, over the alleged theft of intellectual property relating to force feedback technology that would ultimately be used in the DualShock 3 controller for later PlayStation 3 consoles. New Jersey-based Thorner claims that Sony violated trust by failing to defend him and his patents against lawsuits from Immersion. [full story]

August 27 - 1:45pm EDT   It was announced today that Immersion Corp. will pay $20.8 million to Microsoft to settle a lawsuit regarding vibration technology used in the latter's gaming system controllers. As part of the settlement, Immersion will join Microsoft's Certified Partner Program. The now-discarded lawsuit stems from a previous settlement Sony and Immersion reached that saw Sony pay Immersion $121 million for use of its patented technology, with Microsoft claiming its sublicense agreement gives it a claim to a portion of the Sony/Immersion settlement that Immersion initially refused to pay. [full story]