Preview of Synaptics's Next Generation Input Devices

crookedvulture writes "Next year, Synaptics's ForcePad will bring pressure sensitivity to touchpads. It can track five fingers independently, each with up to a kilogram of effective force in precise 15-gram increments. This look at Synaptics' next-gen input tech goes hands-on with with ForcePad, among other new PC inputs. The ultra-slim ThinTouch keyboard, recently acquired through the purchase of Pacinian, combines secretive switches with a side order of capacitive touch. And then there's the latest in touchscreens, the ClearPad Series 4, which purportedly cuts tracking latency by 70%. That's captured on high-speed camera at 240 frames per second."

Comments

Kilogram is not a unit of force

[tepples]

To preempt all the pedants: By "kilogram" they probably mean 9.8 newtons, which is the gravitational force exerted on one kilogram at sea level.

Re:Kilogram is not a unit of force

[SharpFang]

Also, the new touchpad will be very good for power saving, less than 540,000,000 ergs/hour.
Would you prefer that in horsepower?

Re:Kilogram is not a unit of force

[negRo_slim]

To preempt all the pedants: By "kilogram" they probably mean 9.8 newtons, which is the gravitational force exerted on one kilogram at sea level.

Sensitivity of any metric or value is kind of overshadowed by input delay, the article says it's responsive but so do the iPad commercials. And I have yet to find any kind of touch input that is even close to comparable to using a graphics tablet. Of course slow response is fine for general work UI nav, but we all know how cool it would be to "paint" or whatever with your fingers but this isn't viable with the current response times we are seeing in touch devices. Maybe this one is truly responsive and it certainly could be as it's a track pad. I'd just like to have some solid metrics on it before getting excited.

Click harder

[Anonymous Coward]

So "click harder" will be a valid solution, now, so that the computer can finally understand urgency. Great!

Who need synaptic?

[c0lo]

... isn't apt-get good enough?

Re:Who need synaptic?

[c0lo]

(I forgot to mark the above with a (grin). If you are taking it seriously, please receive my apologies along with the obligatory whoosh!)

Re:nice(1) by touch

[Gravis Zero]

So "click harder" will be a valid solution, now, so that the computer can finally understand urgency.

How long until someone makes a window manager that allows pressure to control the priority of a window's process?

That sounds terrible. Call the GNOME developers!

Touch sensitive space bar?

[hawguy]

The article mentions a touch sensitive space bar:

In addition to smarter touchpad management, the capacitive sensors can be used for other functions. A concept video suggested that swiping one's fingers across the spacebar could be part of an auto-complete typing scheme. Auto-complete seems entirely unnecessary for a proper keyboard, unless you're a hopeless hunt-and-peck type, but the spacebar does seem ripe for thumb flicks or pinch gestures. I'd love to be able to move the cursor left and right by sliding my thumbs across the spacebar, for example. Switching between applications by waving one's hand left and right over the keyboard would be pretty cool, too.

Does anyone really think that would work well? I already disable the touchpad on my touchpoint (i.e. little red eraser tipped joystick) keyboard since stray touches on the touchpad cause phantom cursor movements, would a "smart" spacebar be useful?

Re:Touch sensitive space bar?

[viperidaenz]

I find not touching the touch pad when I don't want the cursor move a good solution.

A 10kg dumbbell in the face sure feels forceful.

[Anonymous Coward]

But your Honor! I wasn't applying unreasonable force when I bashed the perp's head with a 10kg dumbbell! I was merely applying unreasonable weight!

Kilogram of force

[rossdee]

Whats that in Midiclorians

Re:If you already know the package's name

[LordLucless]

If you're trying to search for a package, on the other hand, you need an interface that makes search easier.

Like apt-cache search ?

still the fastest guns in the west

[slashmydots]

Sorry but nothing will make me use a touchpad (or a touchscreen for that matter). They can coat it with leprechaun dust and ground up unicorn horns and rub it with Cheetah blood and I'll still beat it 3:1 on speed and practically limitlessness on accuracy with a mouse. If you don't believe me, run a high speed shooting gallery app. I think my record is 9 per second with a mouse. With a touchpad, maybe 1 every 5 seconds. It does have to pop up a target underneath the cursor at some point, lol.

More features for cheap OEMs to ignore

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the point? Most OEMs cheap out on licensing the full Synaptic feature set anyway, so you don't get full multi-touch support on that Dell, even though the hardware supports it.

Re:great gnome idea!

[nullchar]

Instead of possible recovery strategies we should have pounced on your idea 2 years ago!

Say a small group of slashdotters sit down and dream up how we want gnome3 to be and listed those features somewhere private. Then, we try to come up with the opposite of those features, and submit them like crazy to the gnome design community.

Thus, all of the "features" and "changes" we asked for would not get implemented, leaving at least some of the stuff we wanted to be "dreamed up" by the gnome designers, thinking they know what's best for us like always.

Re:A 10kg dumbbell in the face sure feels forceful

[l_bratch]

Weight is force due to gravity. You are thinking of mass.