Sony Xperia ZR to get new feature that can disable touchscreen

Sony Mobile is working on a new feature for the Xperia ZR, dubbed Touch Block. According to the XperiaBlog, the main function of the feature is to prevent accidental touches on the smartphone. It does this by completely disabling the touchscreen on the smartphone. However, users will still be able to answer calls even when Touch Block is on.

The feature is currently in beta, with the latest version numbering at 0.1.A.1.0. It looks like the feature will be making its way only to Sony’s waterproof handsets. The company has not revealed any plans to bring it to other smartphones, such as the Xperia ZL or the Xperia SP.

The touchscreen on the Xperia ZR can now be disabled... just in case

At a glance, the Xperia ZR looks similar to the Xperia Z and ZL, with the circular lock button bang in the middle on the side of the device, the volume rocker below that and a dedicated camera button near the bottom. It runs on Android 4.1, has a large 4.6-inch 720p display and is powered by Sony's own Mobile Bravia engine 2. The Xperia ZR is powered by a 1.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro processor by Qualcomm and 2GB RAM.

Take a quick look at the specifications of the Sony Xperia ZR:

• 4.6-inch capacitive display with 1280 x 720 pixels resolution
• 3G, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot
• NFC
• GPS with A-GPS
• Bluetooth 4.0
• 13MP auto-focus rear camera  with16x digital zoom, front-facing VGA camera
• 8GB internal memory, expandable up to 32GB via microSD card slot