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Membrane That Turns Any Surface Into a Touchscreen

Posted by timothy on from the wasn't-picking-my-nose dept.

alx5000 writes "Engadget has a story about Displax Interactive Systems, a Portuguese company that has created a new polymer film that, when stuck onto a surface, converts it into a multitouch touchscreen with up to 16 contact points. The article states that 'if all goes well, the first Displax-enabled wares will start shipping this July.'"

18 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. MC Hammer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Oh no, they proved MC Hammer wrong!

  2. Obligatory by Pojut · · Score: 2, Funny

    Think of the pr0n possibilities!

    Japanese sexbots + touchscreen membrane = teh sex

    --
    Living With a Nerd
    1. Re:Obligatory by tippe · · Score: 3, Funny

      From TFA:

      As the story goes, an array of nanowires embedded in the film recognizes your digits or pointed breath [...]

      Except that I read "pointed breasts" ;-) [1]

      Ah, how the mind has a way of making things up before you've had your first morning coffee...

      [1] Presumably up to 16 of them. Now that's a party I'd like to be invited to (but probably never will)

  3. 16 contact points by oodaloop · · Score: 4, Funny

    Oh great, so I can use all my fingers...elbows...uh, my nose...tongue?...WTF?

    --
    Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
  4. Usefulness of touchscreens is overrated. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The usefulness of touchscreens is truly overrated.

    I used to work at a pizza chain where we had to ring in orders using a touchscreen. They were the biggest pieces of shit ever. It'd take five or six taps to perform any action.

    Just last week I was at the airport, and ran into the same problem using a much more modern ticket printer station that used a touchscreen.

    I can't help but be very skeptical about this technology, given how poorly existing touchscreens work. And those existing touchscreens are just basic rectangles, in very predictable and controlled environments.

    1. Re:Usefulness of touchscreens is overrated. by Pojut · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's not that they don't work, it's that they aren't maintained.

      Take a look at one of the many all-in-one PCs out there with touchscreens. Hell, just look at an iPhone. They work pretty well. Now look at the touchscreen at the airport. This is a device that is touched by hundreds if not thousands of different people a day. That much constant use is going to require a lot of maintenance.

      Don't blame the touchscreen, blame the fact that they aren't maintained given their high rate of use.

      --
      Living With a Nerd
    2. Re:Usefulness of touchscreens is overrated. by Canazza · · Score: 4, Insightful

      one that can be taken off and replaced constantly without replacing the entire machine (or atleast a significant part, IE the whole display unit) would lower maintainence costs. This will likely be welcomed with open arms :)

      --
      It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
    3. Re:Usefulness of touchscreens is overrated. by mikael_j · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It probably doesn't help that any touchscreen placed somewhere where the general public has access to it will be subjected to vandalism and stupidity in the form of people pouring liquids on it, banging on it and (in the case of stupidity) trying to jab it really really hard without checking if it's possible to, you know, just touch it lightly.

      As for the parent's comment about cash registers I'm willing to bet quite a few coworkers took out their frustrations with customers, the cash registers themselves and management on the cash registers (when I worked in tech support I had a co-worker who went through several mice per month since he would vent his anger by hitting his mouse with a closed fist, doesn't take long for a mouse to fall apart under those conditions).

      /Mikael

      --
      Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
    4. Re:Usefulness of touchscreens is overrated. by jacktherobot · · Score: 2, Informative

      most of the touch screens used in point of sale (i.e. cash register) applications are old resistive touch films. This tech suffers from the drawback that in order for the resistance of the film to change you have to physically deform it to register a touch. This opens you up to all kinds of mechanical fatigue problems like the one you're talking about. Capacative touch systems (like the iphone) which work by sensing the proximity of your finger electrically don't have this problem. The material in the article sounds like an evolution of resistive touch, so it would probably still wear out after a lot of use.

  5. Re:4 x 4? by Canazza · · Score: 5, Informative

    16 contact points as in 16 fingers at once, not 16 'buttons'

    --
    It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
  6. The 'multitouch' is the new bit by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You've been able to get membranes that could be put on normal screens and make them touchscreens for a long time. I remember a school where my mother worked got some in the mid '90s and put them on monitors. A bit later there were companies advertising them for putting on laptops, with a serial adaptor so you got something that looked like a serial mouse to Windows 3.11 but was a touch screen. The news here is that they now support multitouch.

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  7. Finally! by wonkavader · · Score: 4, Funny

    Finally, I can turn my life-size colonel Sanders cut-out into a data entry device.

    1. Re:Finally! by camperdave · · Score: 4, Funny

      Finally, I can turn my life-size colonel Sanders cut-out into a data entry device.

      Dude... I don't even want to know.

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
  8. Re:Touchscreen now means any tactile interface? by FlyingBishop · · Score: 5, Informative

    If light passes through it it is by definition a screen.

    screen != display

  9. Applications by LaminatorX · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Is it good or bad that my first thought was to make a multi-touch battle mat for wargaming?

  10. ATM's by hAckz0r · · Score: 4, Interesting

    With the rash of card skimmers being placed on ATM's I have to wonder just how long it will be before someone "overlays" an ATM's console to grab pin numbers too. These days it pays to be observant of minor differences in hardware because these creeps are getting more and more sophisticated with microelectronics and wireless transceivers. I think it won't be long before someone puts this technology to use in some diabolical and illegal manor.

  11. And the drivers are available for???? by wowbagger · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I've been trying to find touchscreens to incorporate into an embedded system, and few of the touchscreen vendors have drivers for anything other than Windows - as such they get eliminated from my consideration.

    I've just check Displax's site, and a search for "linux" gives no hits - so either:
    a) They are just doing the actual sensing system, and letting somebody else build the actual interface chips
    or
    b) They only support Windows.

    Which makes them a non-starter in my line of work.

    --
    www.eFax.com are spammers
  12. Re:Multi-touch, but... by Emb3rz · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Reasons you would place a touch-sensitive device onto a static surface:

    • Identification of features (educational purposes)
    • Plotting (the vector kind, not the muhahaha kind)
    • Security interface?

    And there are plenty of other things you could use it for.. this is just a starter list. :)