Technological advances are fine when you know how to take advantage of them, but only geeks enjoy a dazzling array of buttons on a control panel, or an enigmatic message on a cellphone screen.

For everyone else, the wonder gadget is just technology overload.

Concerned that customers are being turned off by complexity, electronics manufacturers are developing ways to operate digital devices more easily.

Take a look at what's happening to cellphones.

Although familiar to most people, the latest models incorporate a dazzling array of functions and applications, from cameras to e-wallets.

NEC Corp. has developed a system that gives onscreen operating instructions in response to verbal queries: Think of it as an automated help manual you can talk to.

The befuddled customer talks into the cellphone to ask a question: ``I want to know how to send an e-mail using my cellphone'' or ``I want to mute the ring tone.'' The query is relayed to a computer set up at the mobile phone carrier, equipped with speech recognition capability and a data bank of thousands of possible problems.

The system will then prompt your cellphone to show the chosen instruction on the screen.

Technically, the system is almost ready for practical use, NEC says.

On a simpler level, rival Fujitsu Ltd. in September introduced a new Raku Raku Phone for NTT DoCoMo Inc.'s Foma third-generation cellphone service that gives voice instructions through its speaker. The method for composing an e-mail, for example, is given in steps, such as ``Next, type the main body text.''

Some researchers are convinced the problem is buttons and keys. Something about them causes timid gadget users to freeze up before they have even started.

Alps Electric Co. is working on ways to control devices with unconventional methods using sensors, such as squeezing, rubbing and flicking.

The company has developed a prototype digital music player that can be controlled using the neck strap. Pinching one spot on the strap starts the player, while pinching and holding another part raises the volume.

Separately, rubbing and flicking controllers are being developed for PCs and game consoles, taking over some functions performed through keyboards.

A novel idea is being developed by Hitachi Ltd.

The prototype controller is a smooth hemisphere, 12 centimeters in diameter.

Instead of buttons or switches, the device's round surface is covered with a liquid crystal display screen that shows bubble-like objects bobbing up from the bottom, each bearing a name such as ``news'' or ``music.''

To operate, you wait until a bubble for your desired function comes up, and tilt the controller. This causes the chosen bubble to hit the top of the dome and burst, thereby triggering the desired operation.

``The aim for the device is to liberate people from the bother of finding a desired button on the controller,'' said a member of the development team.

Truly user-friendly interfaces may be some time in coming. In the meantime, however, some companies are taking another option: hiding the controls.

In September, Sony Corp. added six models to its Wega series of flat-panel TVs.

The accompanying remote control looks like a foldable cellphone.

In the closed position, only the bare number of buttons are accessible, such as those for changing channels and controlling volume. Buttons used less often are tucked away inside.

Sony hopes its Oritatami Rimokon (foldable remote) will lessen the fear factor.

``We don't want to overwhelm the user,'' a company official said.(IHT/Asahi: November 20,2004)