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Touch Screen Tech Comes of Age

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the hello-computer dept.

pottercw writes "Good summary of today's touch-screen technologies on Computerworld — the obvious Apple iPhone and Microsoft Surface, plus projected touch screens (nothing for users to break), handheld devices that you control from the back (so your fingers don't obscure the screen), and of course giant multitouch walls a la Minority Report. Anyone got $100K?"

5 of 78 comments (clear)

  1. OpenTouch, touchLib, TouchAPI and Google by Lord+Satri · · Score: 2, Interesting

    For your curiosity, Google also has tentacules in touch screen technology through touchEarth. AFAIK, this is in Google's SoC and work is mostly open source related. (for the most interested in virtual globes touch screens, see this link)

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  2. Unbreakable? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Yeah, sure, just like the Titanic is unsinkable.
    I've lost count of all the broken ATM touch screens I've found.

    Plus touch screens are NOT handicapped-friendly.

    Furthermore, I LIKE tactile feedback. Real buttons are simply more fun to use.

    Finally, the Microsoft table scares the living crud out of me. It can read credit cards strewn on top of it. (And you just know someday that technology could be upgraded to read fingerprints or faces, too.) Some technologies just should NOT be allowed to develop.

  3. Amalgam by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I can't wait until they combine one of these with one of these and get this. A patent abstract is here.

  4. Touch Feedback? by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Anyone got a touchscreen surface covered in something that can feed back directly to the touching fingertips? Like a memory plastic which can raise bumps and ridges around the "GUI", so fingertips can easily tell widget boundaries and tell them apart?

    Is there some dynamic Braille surface that could be made transparent to do this for everyone? We're all blind behind our fingertips blocking the screen.

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  5. Re:please....MS Surface is not touch by westlake · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Surface has nothing to do with touching. There are 7 cameras below the glass that track and feed movement. The glass is the point reference and is not configured to detect or relay any physical content. It's just a big ass table with old tech stuffed inside.

    Surface can take the punishment of the game room or bar.

    It might be possible replace a damaged table top with a cut glass sheet or plastic panel purchased from Home Depot.

    The use of rear projection suggests that it should at least be relatively simple and cheap to scale Surface to any arbitrary size or shape, for vertical or horizontal mounting.

    Surface can read codes stamped into objects. Glasses. Cameras. Game pieces. Surface can communicate with objects - perhaps over a Bluetooth link or something faster.

    Surface seem to do most of its work in software. I can't see any objection to using simple, reliable, off the shelf hardware.