"See-Through" Touchscreen Solves Fat Finger Problem

Urchin sends along a New Scientist writeup on Microsoft Research's nanoTouch prototype, a way of operating a touch screen from the rear (video here). The prototype will be presented at the Computer and Human Interaction conference in Boston, Mass., in April 2009. Coming soon to a wristwatch or neck pendant near you. "Electronic devices have been shrinking for years, but you might be forgiven for thinking that one that's only a centimeter across would be just too difficult to operate. Microsoft Research's new nanoTouch device suggests otherwise. Touch-screens are difficult to control with any precision — the fingers get in the way of the tiny targets you're trying to hit. But putting the touch interface on the rear of the screen instead gives users more precision because they can still see the whole screen as they interact with it. Microsoft Research has produced a prototype device called nanoTouch with a rear-mounted touch interface. User tests show it lets users accurately and reliably hit targets just 2 millimeters across on a screen under a centimeter across."

Comments

I've never heard of this before.

[Odinson]

This is first thing in a long time from Microsoft that has truly impressed me. Amazing what you can accomplish with a little fear of competition. If this is truly novel, nice job!

Re:I've never heard of this before.

[blhack]

What about Surface (a multi-touch platform), or their Image compositing software?

Don't worry, I run openbsd, and a few different linuxes, but seriously...microsoft does some interesting stuff! The microsoft-hate that goes on around here is kindof silly.

Re:I've never heard of this before.

[aliquis]

We have had news about other devices having the touchpart on the rear earlier on Slashdot, so this isn't something totally new. Unless it was Microsoft that time to. It''s a good solution non the less.

Re:I've never heard of this before.

[CaptainPatent]

This is first thing in a long time from Microsoft that has truly impressed me. Amazing what you can accomplish with a little fear of competition. If this is truly novel, nice job!

If you didn't read the article, all they did is put the touch sensitive portion on the back and have that activate a cursor on the front.

At first I thought "Wow, that's a great idea"

Then I thought "Duh, why didn't anyone else think of it?"

Then I thought "Man, that's really limiting" - Imagine how slow typing would be on one of these devices. For each character you'd have to press to see the cursor, adjust for the actual location, then 'lock in' to press the button. Don't get me wrong, it's great for browsing and playing some games, but the Iphone's typing system would be better than this and an actual keyboard is still king.

I do give some props to Microsoft though, I'm glad someone finally thought to do this.

Re:I've never heard of this before.

[Chirs]

Better would be something that could sense the position of your finger before you actually touch it, so that you could reliably cue in on the cursor position and only touch the sensor when the cursor was correctly positioned.

My own main objection is that most of the time I see people using their touch-screen phone/pda with it nestled in the palm of their hand. Holding it that way you don't have access to the back of the device.

Re:I've never heard of this before.

[iMac Were]

If anyone knows how to operate from the rear, it's Apple!

Re:I've never heard of this before.

[iluvcapra]

Surface was kind of a stunt, an amalgam that demos superbly doesn't really have any broad application. I notice it gets major placement in the new Day the Earth Stood Still, and they even use the object-recognition when they place objects on the tabletop (though, in the movie as in real life, this is simulated and doesn't actually work without a lot of cheating.)

Photosynth is slick though.

Re:I've never heard of this before.

[joeytmann]

Well on something as large as a coffee table, I really don't think your hand is going to obscure too much of the screen. On a pocketpc device, yes I have a hard time seeing what I am clicking when using my finger, hence the reason why I still use a stylus.

Re:I've never heard of this before.

[SanityInAnarchy]

I certainly see a lot of interesting things demo'd at Microsoft R&D.

And then get promptly ignored by the rest of the company, and never actually show up for market.

Contrast this to, say, Apple, who never gives demos like that unless they're actually launching the product in the next few months -- or right away.

Microsoft is too large a company to hate entirely. Bungie was part of them for awhile, after all -- I wanted to hate Halo for that, but it ended up actually being a good game. And they do seem to let their R&D department do some interesting things.

Then they let business concerns drive everything else, and we end up with crap like Vista.

Anyone want to guess how much better Microsoft would be with, say, Ballmer gone?

Re:I've never heard of this before.

[kramer2718]

I think that a better solution to the fat finger problem would be tactile feedback. The reason that touch screen keyboards have more of a fat finger problem is that the user can feel that they are pressing a key correctly.

1cm across?

[FlyByPC]

Some of the inherent inaccuracy has to do with using touchscreen devices while walking, driving (in-car controls), riding mass transit, etc. Under these conditions, even 1cm accuracy is pretty good. I think most users would prefer a larger interface that works every time, rather than a smaller one which can be frustrating to use on a regular basis.

Wristwatch?

[fahrbot-bot]

Coming soon to a wristwatch or neck pendant near you.

Ya, I tried pressing my watch from the back, but my wrist got in the way. On the up side, my pulse is strong.

Re:Why does the screen have to be see-through?

[KeithJM]

Many people will have a hard time getting a feeling for exactly where their fingers are if the screen is not see-through.

Think about the first time you used a mouse. It takes about 20 seconds to get used to the idea that you're moving your hand in two dimensions and the cursor moves in two dimensions, even if you can't watch both at once. If you've used a trackpad on a laptop, it's EXACTLY like this (except it's not on the back of the device). I think you'd be surprised how quickly you'd get used to this.

Re:Stupid Question

[HikingStick]

Do you forget the shape of a finger? Unless you've had a catastrophic accident with a snowblower (as did my father), the shape of the finger is such that a gentle touch can easily hit a small target. We're not talking about pressing the entire finger pad onto the surface of the touchscreen.