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Transform a Regular LCD Into a Touchscreen
eZtaR writes "NAVisis is introducing a new USB gadget (for Windows only including Vista) called LaptopTablet. You mount it onto the side of your regular LCD monitor to transform it into a fully functional touchscreen, controlled with an included pen. The gadget is priced at around $100 and seems a good alternative for Photoshoppers."
Let me know when some high end printing company bundles this so I can go to work on Photoshopping my paycheck. (For educational purposes of course)
Infiltrated dot Net
RThe TabletMouse looks interesting as well. The company should probably hire a better translator though. "Welcome to NAVIsis, The Best Company of Tablet Device"? Apparently, all your mice are belong to them.
...but there has to be a pr0n application here somewhere.
Unfortunatly, I don't think this will be much more than a neat gadget, and it certainly won't live up to the needs of a serious artist. There's no mention of accuracy or pressure sensitivity, and I didn't see art/photoshop listed on the website. I'd be keen on seeing some reviews of it, and the prospect of attaching it to a laptop screen sounds pretty interesting but for the price I'd rather just pick up a small Wacom tablet. The fact it's made mainly for a laptop monitor only and claims to work only for Windows makes it a pass for me.
Who wants to hold their arm out, hovering over the keyboard, attempting to "draw" on a surface that isn't firm (laptop hinges are not designed to resist pushing on the screen)? This is a terrible idea in my opinion. The big advantage of *real* tablets is that they fold "roughly" flat so you can write/draw on them more naturally. Even at that, they are usually too thick, making writing uncomfortable.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
Quite literally. Laptop screens aren't designed to be touched, let alone scraped and prodded all over with a stylus. Or does this thing come with a plexiglass overlay?
The touch screens and active stylus input displays have a thick glass or plexiglass or other durable substance to protect the screen, but every LCD (laptop or desktop) I've ever set up has a warning about not touching the screen in w/ the setup / operating instructions.
My boss and several co-workers regularly touch the LCDs here in the office, making the surface bend and distorting the image and it makes me wince everytime.
William
(who is looking forward to _all_ LCDs coming w/ some sort of digitizer built-in after manufacturers decide the added durability and lessened expense of one manufacturing line instead of two makes economic sense)
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Needs a pen, that sucks. I prefer real touchscreens where you simply touch them like the ELO.
as for photoshoppers, doodling on a monitor sucks. Using a pen tablet on the desk is far easier and way more intuitive as well as not having your hand and pen device in the way blocking your view.
This is a neat device, but for the price you can get kits from ebay to add a real touchscreen layer to your lcd or laptop instead of something that requires a special pen.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
A serious graphic artist probably wants a CRT for accurate colour, gamma, etc. And at least an A4 Wacom if they prefer drawing, but on a horizontal rather than vertical surface.
Most pros I know use a Wacom in Photoshop or Illustrator, but mostly they're mouse people.
I can't imagine that a serious Photoshopper would want to use an LCD screen and draw on it with a stylus, it's just not accurate enough.
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
This could turn out to be a very cost effective solution for Point of Sale registers. Touch screen flat panels are expensive (and flat panels are popular with PoS devices since they take up much less counter space) so this could lower costs per register by $100 -$200.
or you'll exhaust all your server resour.... forget it.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
other than in a POS or evoting application, I honestly do not see why why people want a touchscreen.
I'm talking about a laptop/tablet configuration.
yes, the idea sounds great and people will say that their productivity will increase, yada, yada, yada, but MOST people who say this have never used one or experienced the frustration when their touchscreen goes out of calibration, which will happen ALOT!!!
I support a salesforce of about 200 who use various touchscreen PCs from HP Ipaq to Fujitsu tablets and laptops. at first they were ecstatic about the touchscreens then they slowly figured out that it was actually quicker for them to use the mouse/keyboard instead of having to touch the screen x/y on this side of this form and -x/y on this side of another button, etc in order to put in their orders.
the screen doesnt go out of calibration uniformly across the whole screen, but generally in 5 different ways in the 4 corners and in the middle. this is a nightmare to use and to support!
the history of the world
looks like the host is slashdotted, here is a mirrordot link to the first page of the article, does anyone have a better mirror of this site?
7 6bc23e2cfff8f72/index.html
http://www.mirrordot.org/stories/a3c962572c00cfd4
Why UNIX?
Last time I read /. at 0 that's for sure. A bunch of people worried about pressing on an LCD not designed for it, and then a bunch of trolls. Guess all stories are like this.
The company's in Korea. Any slashdotters there trying it with linux / trying it out in the store?
This could really hurt Anoto, which makes an extremely advanced system of bluetooth/optical recognition pens and special paper using a pattern that is unique for every page.
Anoto, like the Flypen toy based on its tech, has all kinds of applications. For example a checkbox called "Fax" at the bottom of a sheet of paper that when you check it, it gets faxed. Navisis has a portable version for pdas and maybe phones, called the phone pen which looks quite cool, and the mouse version that works on your table top is quite neat too. They do sell protective covering for your lcd as well, anyway I'd like to hear from someone who really uses it, and then hear about if it just looks like a mouse to the system or if it needs a driver.
I considered myself a holdout but I just replaced the last of our CRTs. If you're designing for screen, output is increasingly going to be viewed on a flat panel. If you're designing for print, RGB output is always inaccurate.
LCD displays have improved since the late 90s and the advantages of CRT monitors are becoming fallacy.
Same price, actually, as the smallest Wacom Graphire.
I think you meant to say "graphics professionals who use the software application Adobe Photoshop®."
sincerely,
- Adobe
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I have a business and have implemented the use of a S/W program that is heavily based on touchscreen technology for production. The funny thing is that I have gone through 2 of these expensive suckers (CRT & LCD) before getting smart. I now buy cheap lcd's and cheap overlays!! The cost is almost a third of the price of the complete unit and work great. But here's the real funny thing, I always, always always, always check a technology company's bottom line of their web site for their copyright date to see how good they are keeping the public web stuff current. NAVisis's web site has a copyright of 2002. :-o This technology is not new stuff anyway they are just catching up.