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Modular Touchpad Aims To Replace Most Input Devices

Posted by Soulskill on from the wacom-gets-nervous dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Wired reports on the 'Sensel Morph' input device, which launched on Kickstarter yesterday and blew past its funding goal almost immediately. It's a tablet-sized touchpad, but the key feature is the ability to place custom overlays on it. For example, you can snap on a flexible keyboard and the device starts behaving like a normal keyboard. Other overlays can imitate a game controller or a musical instrument. It's sensitive enough to detect paintbrushes, or you can put a simple overlay on it and use pencil or pen. The magnetic connectors in these overlays tell the device how to process the input, and they're making an open source API so developers can create their own. The touchpad has 20,000 individual sensors, with pressure sensitivity ranging from 5g to 5kg.

76 comments

  1. Out of Touch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    At what point will the tactile experience come back?

    1. Re:Out of Touch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your mama's cleft of venus is my "touch"pad.

    2. Re:Out of Touch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I see your fissure of Rolando is buried deep within the ring of Uranus

    3. Re: Out of Touch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's more like a tech cloud this time around.

    4. Re:Out of Touch by kheldan · · Score: 1

      What are you even talking about? You can buy a buckling-spring mechanical keyswitch keyboard right now, they never went away. You just have to go look for them.

      --
      Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
  2. link to the actual thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1152958674/the-sensel-morph-interaction-evolved

    1. Re:link to the actual thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thanks, I couldn't find anything actually describing what this is even in the linked article.

      Now that I've seen it, pretty sure I'm not in their target market.

    2. Re:link to the actual thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thank you. All Wired does is link to another Wired article, then another Wired article... and another. Is /. getting kickbacks from them?

    3. Re:link to the actual thing by mr_mischief · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the direct link. It looks neat. It's reminiscent of the TI 99/4A and its overlays for the membrane keyboard, but with multiple levels of pressure sensitivity like a single-touch drawing pad.

      I think the flexibility could be nice, and it may work as a quick input device for my phone. There's no way that little mat is going to replace a mechanical keyboard for gamers, software developers, sysadmins, or others who use a keyboard heavily though.

    4. Re:link to the actual thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I believe you're thinking of another computer (Timex Sinclair?). The TI99/4a had a real keyboard.

    5. Re:link to the actual thing by mr_mischief · · Score: 1

      You're right. I must be thinking of something else. Intellivision had overlays for the controllers. Sinclair had the rubberized chiclets though, so it wasn't that. I know the Odyssey 2 had the kind of keyboard I'm thinking of, but I don't remember if they sold overlays for it with the games. The Atari 400 (not the 400 XL) had the little bubble membrane keyboard but I'm pretty sure it wasn't that.

  3. Yeah right... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Prediction: Will ship late, underdeliver, and will replace zero input devices for 99.999% of people.

    1. Re:Yeah right... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The tech has the potential to replace WACOM digitizer tables for artists.

      And depending on how affordable the print your own overlay service ends up being it could be useful for games, as you could place the buttons more ergonomically, particularly by positioning them so they're comfortably placed for your hand size. (they example game layout looks like an idiotic first attempt)

      Of their overlays the piano and mixing board ones have the most potential, as Audio interface controllers are stupidly expensive and you potentially want a wide variety of them

    2. Re:Yeah right... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The tech has the potential to replace WACOM digitizer tables for artists.

      +100000 funny. Yeah, right. It's a cutesy proof of concept, but nothing in the same league as WACOM's products.

    3. Re:Yeah right... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It doesn't matter. I think the point the OP was making is that nothing on Kickstarter is ever successful.

    4. Re:Yeah right... by janoc · · Score: 2

      More like the gizmo will never get made unless they have money from elsewhere and are using Kickstarter only as a marketing campaign. The $60k they are asking for won't cover even the materials. Just the mandatory FCC/CE/UL certifications will take a third of their budget, assuming that they actually pass on the first try.

      This article gives a good breakdown of how much it does actually cost to build and ship a hardware product:
      https://medium.com/bolt-blog/w...

    5. Re:Yeah right... by GuB-42 · · Score: 1

      Probably.
      However, considering how overfunded the project is, it actually has a chance to deliver. The initial goal of $60k seems too optimistic to me, but if they manage to reach the million, they should be able to make it to mass production.

    6. Re:Yeah right... by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      More like the gizmo will never get made unless they have money from elsewhere and are using Kickstarter only as a marketing campaign

      You seem to think that's a bad thing. It's the purest form of market research there is - not only did you get people interested in your thing, but you got them to put money behind it.

      Everyone on /. keeps saying "they don't make a phone with features X Y and Z that I need, there must be a market". Well, the best way to find out if there really is a market other than you is to try to build it and then get others to buy into it. If you can't raise the money, well, either the market's not as big as you think (and that's why your feature requests are ignored), or you did a terrible job marketing (which you can tell if people are saying "well I would've got it if I knew about it").

      Kickstarter is great for that purpose - I've participated in more than a few of them. Sure, they're always late and there's always some issue or another, but it shows the potential.

      If you're a startup looking for seed money, being able to answer the question of "but do people want it" and showing them your Kickstarter page showing that 20,000 people have already contributed halfway through is a powerful indicator of potential sales.

      Remember, Kickstarter means you found people who are not only interested in your thing, but interested enough to go "TAKE MY MONEY!".

      And yes, Kickstarters fail all the time, just like the regular market. Brilliant inventions and stuff disappears as companies go out of business. The only difference is instead of some executive saying this is what we thing people want, creators can literally ask people if they potentially want it.

    7. Re:Yeah right... by CastrTroy · · Score: 1

      I'm all for helping little guys get started, but it's amazing how much they miss out on. Even high profile projects (like the Raspberry Pi) seem to miss out on things like FCC/CE/UL certifications.

      Another one that I like to point out is the Ouya. They were trying to deliver an Android Box, a controller, and a custom Android build and marketplace for the same price that most other companies were asking for just an Android Box. It was pretty easy to tell from the start that they were going to have to cut a lot of corners on the product to meet the price they advertised.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    8. Re:Yeah right... by Sir+Holo · · Score: 2

      Why lug all those things around when the whole point of a tactile-sensitive surface is to liberate people from carrying around peripherals?!?

      I already have a wireless keyboard, no thicker than their (expensive) overlay, that cost $10.

      I already have a wireless mouse, so their product doesn't help me there.

      I already have a WACOM tablet, so it doesn't help me there.

      I already have a WACOM-type tablet with an underlying video display, so their thing doesn't help there, either.

      I already have a USB piano keyboard, so how are they helping me?

      It has sliders, pots, and 8 drum-pad inputs, so their product doesn't help for full audio production.

      What else is there? Trackballs, game-pads, specialist tools. All of these can be had at reasonable prices.

      No consumer is going to buy their (very impressive) touch-surface, and also buy a bunch of plastic clip-on things for it as well. The biggest problem is that it reduces the precision of the link between overlay and their super-sensitive surface with a mechanical-interaction layer — that's right, the overlays have to touch the surface. The consumer is back to square one, at best.

    9. Re:Yeah right... by cdrudge · · Score: 1

      Prediction: Will ship late, underdeliver, and will replace zero input devices for 99.999% of people.

      So you're saying it will be more successful than most other kickstarters then?

    10. Re:Yeah right... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Another one that I like to point out is the Ouya. They were trying to deliver an Android Box, a controller, and a custom Android build and marketplace for the same price that most other companies were asking for just an Android Box. It was pretty easy to tell from the start that they were going to have to cut a lot of corners on the product to meet the price they advertised.

      Actually, the place they failed to deliver the most wasn't a place they had to fail at all: in the software stack. There's no real recovery partition, #1. They spent weeks writing and rewriting the dashboard software while major bugs went unfixed, #2. And their controller library was never actually any good at keeping the controllers straight whether you used theirs or PS3 controllers or what have you, #3. So it was always a pain in the asshole. The whole point of a game console is that it just works.

      And if you really want to think about it critically, they failed before they even started when they imagined that Google would not simply add controller support to Android, and further, that they would not do a better job than some upstarts abusing a Tegra3. Then when Google announced Play Games, they still thought they could be somebody other than just a delivery system for same. Suckers. If they had climbed aboard, thrown away their stupid controller API for Google's, and embraced the future that was obviously coming, they might have stuck it out. But honestly, after insulting their core audience by delivering on none of their promises, they had no chance to survive.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    11. Re:Yeah right... by bughunter · · Score: 1

      I'm with you on this.

      Whoever can make a force-adaptive touch-pad that's also a display will sell lots of product.

      And whoever can do that, combined with array of built-in reconfigurable tactile feedback sensors will change the market for all kinds of devices.

      --
      I can see the fnords!
    12. Re:Yeah right... by Dashiva+Dan · · Score: 1

      The tech has the potential to replace WACOM digitizer tables for artists.

      +100000 funny. Yeah, right. It's a cutesy proof of concept, but nothing in the same league as WACOM's products.

      Well, I've used a number of Wacom tablets, I haven't tried this new one yet (for obvious reasons) however I assume by your comment that you have.
      Would you be able to go into a little more detail/comparison of your experience that leads you to the conclusion the products are even in different leagues?

      --
      "lt;dr" is the correct response to most of my posts.
    13. Re:Yeah right... by Dashiva+Dan · · Score: 1

      Why lug all those things around when the whole point of a tactile-sensitive surface is to liberate people from carrying around peripherals?!?

      I already have a wireless keyboard, no thicker than their (expensive) overlay, that cost $10.

      I already have a wireless mouse, so their product doesn't help me there.

      I already have a WACOM tablet, so it doesn't help me there.

      I already have a WACOM-type tablet with an underlying video display, so their thing doesn't help there, either.

      I already have a USB piano keyboard, so how are they helping me?

      It has sliders, pots, and 8 drum-pad inputs, so their product doesn't help for full audio production.

      What else is there? Trackballs, game-pads, specialist tools. All of these can be had at reasonable prices.

      No consumer is going to buy their (very impressive) touch-surface, and also buy a bunch of plastic clip-on things for it as well. The biggest problem is that it reduces the precision of the link between overlay and their super-sensitive surface with a mechanical-interaction layer — that's right, the overlays have to touch the surface. The consumer is back to square one, at best.

      Hmm, If I were you, the possibility of having:
      a wireless keyboard
      a wireless mouse
      a wacom tablet
      usb piano keyboard
      (just picking out those 4)
      In any case, having one device replace those 4 sounds kind of like a step up to me.
      Of course, it would primarily be of convenience to you. As you already have all the separate devices, you can easily skip this product.
      But if I were similar to you, and needed all those devices, however didn't have half or more of them, I'd think this product would definitely be one of interest.
      As for some of your other complaints about the product (lets take the last one in bold), I haven't used it to refute, but there's a lot of stuff on the kickstarter page, including videos of prototypes in use, and while hardly conclusive, I don't see those testers 'back at square 1' at all...

      --
      "lt;dr" is the correct response to most of my posts.
    14. Re:Yeah right... by janoc · · Score: 1

      More like the gizmo will never get made unless they have money from elsewhere and are using Kickstarter only as a marketing campaign

      You seem to think that's a bad thing. It's the purest form of market research there is - not only did you get people interested in your thing, but you got them to put money behind it.

      I don't have a problem with market research, but then please mark it as such. This is just dishonest and it does a disservice to everyone else by giving the impression to the general public that an actual product can be made for that ridiculous budget and timeline. Then campaigns with genuine products and realistic budgets will never get financed because people take this sort of thing as standard and realistic. At least these guys have some real prototypes and aren't just selling hot air there.

      Also, doing a "market research" Kickstarter as a mean to convince VCs and/or angel investors to give you funds is pretty much a suicidal gamble - now you have 20k people who have put down their money for your gizmo and you still have no real funding to produce it. And you may not be able to get it - 20k people wanting a $200 gizmo is not that much interesting from the investment point of view by itself (that's just $4million) and it is pretty much the worst project size possible when it comes to manufacturing - too big to build in a garage and not big enough to actually give you access to the manufacturing facilities you will need. Also, few projects reach that sort of size on Kickstarter, most get much less. So unless it is something really groundbreaking, truly visionary that will make the VCs go gaga and pull out the checkbooks, you will have trouble attracting investment (heck,it is a stupid touchpad like the one Apple sells already ...). However, you are stuck with the commitment to build and ship those 20k units already ...

      I more inclined to say that these people are an idealistic startup trying to bring their first project to the market, with no real past experience doing so. The completely BS time line shows that as well - they budgeted one month only for tooling and production - just the injection molding tooling production takes several weeks for every iteration (and costs thousands of $$$ a pop) and it is pretty much granted they will not get it right the first time.

      So my bet is that this will ship a year or two late, over budget and probably drive the company to bancruptcy in the process.

    15. Re: Yeah right... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I may be wrong about this but I don't think this device will track your position when you are not in contact with its surface. This is an important feature of Wacom tablets.

  4. Old televsion by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

    Winky Dink and You with a touchpad.

    --
    Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    1. Re:Old televsion by The-Ixian · · Score: 1

      I was thinking Intellivision... Each game came with an overlay for the generic controller with specific labeling for that game.

      --
      My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
    2. Re:Old televsion by bughunter · · Score: 1

      Yes I remember, and the buttons required an incredible amount of force to register, you got very little, if any, tactile feedback that you had closed the switch, and the layout of the thing was completely unergonomic.

      Astrosmash! I played that game until my hands hurt. And kept playing. I got to the point where the levels didn't get any harder, so it just became an endurance challenge. The intellivision lost. One day the screen froze on level eleventy, and the system never booted again.

      --
      I can see the fnords!
  5. Everything old is new again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Remember those dumb templates you used to put over your Model M so you could understand what the inputs were mapped to when you changed programs?

  6. Sorry, but slapping a keyboard overlay... by rnturn · · Score: 1

    ... over a touchpad does not give me that Model M experience.

    --
    CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
    1. Re:Sorry, but slapping a keyboard overlay... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

      I agree(from my Model M) that you should never send some 'touch' nonsense to do a proper buckling spring keyswitch's job; but the technology behind this product actually sounds extraordinarily impressive, just not suited for beating keyswitches at what keyswitches do best.

      Resistive sensors are not new; but have traditionally suffered from tepid pressure-level sensitivity, a very limited number of simultaneous touch points(the basic 'grid layout' ones often just register two touches as a single touch somewhere between those two points); and the ones that are actually good have been comparatively expensive and large enough to be packaged as discrete parts.

      These guys claim that they can get 20,000 pressure sensors of adequate quality crammed into a small enough surface to provide comprehensive coverage, and cheaply enough that you'll be able to get one for $200. If that is so, they have a very, very, interesting entrant into the existing market for strain gauges, force sensitive resistors, and the like; with markedly higher resolution and comparatively low cost. Robotics will be all over this one.

  7. Oh goody, a membrane/touchscreen keyboard by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Because those are always so much fun.

    1. Re:Oh goody, a membrane/touchscreen keyboard by TeknoHog · · Score: 4, Funny

      Agreed. Touchscreen keyboards drive me insane...

      *puts on sunglasses*

      ..in the membrane.

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
    2. Re:Oh goody, a membrane/touchscreen keyboard by mr_mischief · · Score: 1

      This link's for you.:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    3. Re:Oh goody, a membrane/touchscreen keyboard by squiggleslash · · Score: 2

      Hopefully they'll give you the whole ZX81 experience and add half a dozen different shift buttons you have to press in different combinations to get the special characters/keywords you want to type.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  8. Interesting, but I'd rather just buy overlays by mbourgon · · Score: 2

    Honestly, the part that I dig the most is the tactile overlays. Interesting concept, but too limited for me for the price. That being said, I'd buy the heck out of a $15/$20 overlay that gives you the tactile sensation, but using my Tablet of Choice as a controller. I've seen them for keyboard replacements for the ipad; unsure what else is out there.

    --
    "Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
  9. why not laser projection overlay? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    With a laser projection overlay you could have limitless configurations that are event driven. You could do clever things like screen overlay for paintbrush or signing function as well.

    1. Re:why not laser projection overlay? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Sensel Morph offers a new generation of multi-touch interaction, powered by our patented Pressure Grid technology, in the form of an input device that allows people to interact with computers and programs in a whole new way.

      Emphasis added. They probably weren't able to get spurious patents on laser project overlay like they could with this thing. Likely they want to be acquired so having patents will help that.

    2. Re:why not laser projection overlay? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      that would still be the needed tech for quality sensor to pickup brushstrokes. The projector would remove the expensive and limited overlays. It wouldn't even have to be laser you could use pico projectors, ideally multiple to allow light visibility that your hand wouldn't cover.

    3. Re:why not laser projection overlay? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

      This could have just been device immaturity; but I played with one of those 'laser keyboard' gizmos back when they came out and, while this sensor would presumably help solve the fact that keypress registration was iffy and tactile feedback was utterly hopeless; it isn't in a position to deal with the fact that the laser overlay effect itself was(once you got past the OMG I Live In The Sci-Fi Future Now! effect) kind of lousy. Your hands cast shadows during use, and the keys being shadowed were projected distractingly all over your fingers, while the laser lines were a bit dim for bright light; but somewhat uncomfortable to look at in dim conditions, and you did a fair amount of looking because touch typing was not happening.

      The cool factor was high; but the experience was fairly unpleasant.

  10. Sensitive? by Viol8 · · Score: 1

    I've yet to use any kind of touchpad that can even get close to matching the sensitivity of an ordinary mouse. With a mouse I can move the pointer to individual pixels, with a touchpad I'm lucky if I can even get it on the right icon or menu option half the time.

    1. Re:Sensitive? by mrchaotica · · Score: 1

      You're talking about sensitivity in the x and y directions; the summary was talking about sensitivity in the z direction.

      If you want it to be more sensitive in x and y, you have to poke at it with something with a finer tip than your finger.

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    2. Re:Sensitive? by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 1

      Cool story, brah.

      Unfortunately, that isn't what they meant by sensitive. "Sensitive" was in reference to pressure sensitivity.

    3. Re:Sensitive? by Viol8 · · Score: 1

      I took it as sentitivity in general. The Z direction is a pretty minor piece of functionality. X,Y is far more important to most people.

      "If you want it to be more sensitive in x and y, you have to poke at it with something with a finer tip than your finger."

      Even that won't work a lot of the time because the granularity of the pad is less than that of the screen.

    4. Re:Sensitive? by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 1

      I took it as sentitivity in general. The Z direction is a pretty minor piece of functionality. X,Y is far more important to most people.

      If pressure sensitivity was just a "minor piece of functionality" then no one would be using WACOM products.

    5. Re:Sensitive? by godefroi · · Score: 2

      Didn't look very sensitive in the Z either; they had to smash the brush (a big, heavy brush at that) pretty stiffly onto the thing to get it to register. Plus, it's very laggy. They're insane if they think anyone will replace a WACOM with this for artwork.

      --
      Karma: Poor (Mostly affected by lame karma-joke sigs)
    6. Re:Sensitive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Couldn't bother to read the whole summary? The ending sentence makes it quite clear what was being referred to:

      The touchpad has 20,000 individual sensors, with pressure sensitivity ranging from 5g to 5kg.

    7. Re:Sensitive? by dinfinity · · Score: 1

      So roughly 100x200 'sensels' on 130mm x 230mm (~5inch x ~9inch). Straight dpi is thus: 20dpi.
      Now that assumes a perfect point source, not a finger. The force sensitivity has 4096 levels, apparently ranging from 5g to 5kg. You're not going to push anywhere near 50N with your finger so not all those levels will be relevant. With some processing over multiple sensors, though, the precision could increase quite a bit.

      They quote ~0.1mm themselves, which would imply about 250dpi precision in the horizontal plane, which is not stellar.

      (Please correct my math if I made a mistake. It's been a long day.)

    8. Re:Sensitive? by gweilo8888 · · Score: 1

      They quote a 1.25mm sensor pitch on their Kickstarter page, so that's 20.32 sensels per inch, to be more precise. Their 0.1mm figure (if you ignore that they themselves suggest it to be an approximation) translates to 254 dpi.

      They list an active area of 9 x 5.1 inches, which is similar to that of the Wacom Intuos Pen and Touch Medium (8.5 x 5.3 inches). Wacom claim an order of magnitude higher resolution (2540 lpi) with a higher read speed (125Hz full-resolution for Sensel vs. 133pps for Wacom).

      It seems that the only area where this bests Wacom is in pressure sensitivity (1,024 levels for Wacom vs. 4,096 levels for Sensel), but as you note, nobody is going to come close to their 11lb maximum pressure level in real-world use -- more likely, just a tenth of that. Hence most of their 4,096 levels will go unused, and in the real world likely Wacom will best them for pressure sensitivity as well.

      What, precisely, is the reason for spending US$250 to maybe, possibly get one of these in a year when you can pick up the Intuos Pen & Touch Medium today for just US$170? I'm failing to see one, personally.

    9. Re:Sensitive? by bughunter · · Score: 1

      You're not going to push anywhere near 50N with your finger so not all those levels will be relevant.

      nobody is going to come close to their 11lb maximum pressure level in real-world use

      You're forgetting about drumsticks. 50N may not even be a sufficient limit for a satisfying drum pad experience...

      And I would imagine people with smaller fingertips and strong hands could easily hit 50 newtons typing if they tried... although that'd really be banging on the keys.

      --
      I can see the fnords!
  11. Key is included snap-ons by gurps_npc · · Score: 1
    This device could catch on - but only if it includes at least one killer-app snap on. It's not going to take off if you sell it bare bones with no overlay.

    But if they include something interesting, like a music overlay - with software designed for it, or a gaming overlay, then I could see it take off big time.

    --
    excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
    1. Re:Key is included snap-ons by Octorian · · Score: 2

      Except that I'm not sure people want to have to keep a drawer of "snap-on templates" for all their configurations. Its just yet another thing to lose, and inevitably have a hard time replacing. This will become especially true when the next product revision breaks compatibility with the older snap-ons.

      Now when/if they can make the configuration software-controlled, it may have real potential. That's much harder, of course.

    2. Re:Key is included snap-ons by srmalloy · · Score: 1

      From reading the Kickstarter page, the device itself is just a blank pressure-sensitive surface. The configuration software defines areas on that surface that produce specific responses when touched, in the same way that the HTML 'map' tag does for an image. The overlays just provide a visual and tactile feedback so that the user can readily see what the programmed response will be, rather than fumbling across a featureless surface trying to find the right spot (and, with the 'stock' templates, have a pattern of embedded magnets to allow the unit to configure itself automatically for the template).

    3. Re:Key is included snap-ons by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

      Unless the sensor can only be fabricated in flat sheets, they could really have a winner for bringing high resolution pressure sensitivity to the teledildonics market. Not that they'd necessarily trumpet that fact on their main page.

  12. Apologies for the physics rage, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    ...pressure is not measured in units of mass! We use force per unit area, and for good reason.

    You can convert (kilo)grams to force easily enough if you assume normal gravity, but not knowing the dimensions of each pressure sensor means the figure they've given is almost meaningless.

    There's a world of difference between detecting 5g spread over an area the size of an average laptop touchpad, or over 1/20,000th that area (comparable to the head of a pin).

    1. Re:Apologies for the physics rage, but... by mark-t · · Score: 1

      Actually, mass per unit area is a measurement of pressure, not force. Force is actually a product of mass and acceleration. Since you wanted to have a physics rage, I figured you wouldn't mind being corrected.

      Now, to familiarize yourself with the colloquial norm, when someone talks about "5kg of force", they are generally not actually talking about 5kg as a mass, they are usually talking about 5kg as a WEIGHT, or to be more specific, approximately 49 Newtons, which *IS* the proper unit for force. Talking about Newtons of force, however, is not as intuitive to most people as talking about the force that is endured by some amount of mass subjected to Earth's gravity because we have daily personal experience with the latter, while the former basically sounds like an arbitrary number to most people, and many would only have an intuitive meaning of it if they had extensively utilized those units in their job or through personal experimentation, etc. Most bathroom scales typically measure a person's body weight in units of mass, for example, despite the fact that what they are really measuring is the force that is being exerted between them and the earth, so there is certainly no lack of precedent for using what are otherwise the same units of mass as a measurement for force. Since the ratio between force and weight is essentially constant, weight is often considered a synonym for force, for all practical purposes, even in the physics community.

      --
      File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
    2. Re:Apologies for the physics rage, but... by smaddox · · Score: 1

      The SI unit for pressure is the Pascal, which is equal to one Newton per square meter, i.e. force per unit area. A paper weight does not apply pressure on a table without some acceleration applied, e.g. gravity. Please check your facts before correcting others.

    3. Re:Apologies for the physics rage, but... by mark-t · · Score: 1

      Of course, but units of mass per unit of area is still considered pressure.

      Look at your car tires for recommended inflation pressure. Note the abbreviation PSI - pounds per square inch, ie, units of mass per unit area.

      --
      File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
  13. Intellivision by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This fondly reminds me of the old Intellivision controller overlays.

  14. No, it's not a replacement. by sirwired · · Score: 1

    A dead-flat touchpad is no replacement for a proper keyboard. I know of no half-way decent typist that can come anywhere near their typing speed on a touch-screen. And mice have the advantage that they work in most applications requiring a pointer. I don't need an overlay to do this.

    At best, this is a low-rent replacement for a Wacom, but not as precise; there's a reason Digitizers don't use simple pressure sensors. (And graphics tablets have had overlays since forever... I remember using an AutoCAD overlay a quarter-century ago.)

    1. Re:No, it's not a replacement. by Dashiva+Dan · · Score: 1

      A dead-flat touchpad is no replacement for a proper keyboard. I know of no half-way decent typist that can come anywhere near their typing speed on a touch-screen. And mice have the advantage that they work in most applications requiring a pointer. I don't need an overlay to do this.

      At best, this is a low-rent replacement for a Wacom, but not as precise; there's a reason Digitizers don't use simple pressure sensors. (And graphics tablets have had overlays since forever... I remember using an AutoCAD overlay a quarter-century ago.)

      That is kind of the point of the overlays - to stop it being 'dead flat'.
      If you read the kickstarter page - they're 3D printed to whatever you like, pretty much (although I assume that excessive thickness of small areas could/would impact the sensitivity - think more chicklet thickness of keys than old fashioned mechanicals)
      And 3D printers are advancing fast, I personally assume that in a year or two (around the time I might get one of these new touchpads) I'll also have relatively easy access to a 3D printer (or my own) and at that point I can make whatever tactile surface I desire - the possibilities are uncountable.
      The main possibility I think this could take off with is if someone creates an application that allows you to generate custom tactile keyboard layouts based off individual hand size and wrist angle, etc. (sure, they won't be the pleasing mechanical clicky goodness of an IBM model M, but that's a sacrifice I have to make on a daily basis - I currently use a ms surface pro plastic keyboard, a MS generic at work, logitech wireless and mac wireless, and the macbook pro keyboard - I've realised that while I would far prefer one perfect mechanical keyboard I could use for all of them that that's basically an impossibility - trade-offs and compromises are made, and this product sounds like a pretty fantastic compromise of flexibility and useability)

      --
      "lt;dr" is the correct response to most of my posts.
  15. See my past by AndyKron · · Score: 1

    Wow! It's like 1985 all over again!

    1. Re:See my past by neo-mkrey · · Score: 1

      This is the reason I bought an Atari 800 and not an Atari 400.

  16. Intellivision? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So it's an Intellivision controller?

    1. Re:Intellivision? by Ixpath · · Score: 1

      Finally, I was waiting for someone to bring it back.

  17. 21 dpi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't see this as a likely art tablet with this kind of resolution. 20,000 points/45 in^2 = 444 pts/in^2.

    1. Re: 21 dpi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is the only interesting comment.

  18. Oops, patented. by null+etc. · · Score: 1

    What are they going to do when Apple is awarded the patent they filed for in 2005?

    http://www.google.com/patents/...

    1. Re:Oops, patented. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What are they going to do when Apple is awarded the patent they filed for in 2005?

      http://www.google.com/patents/...

      The overlays are not "Mechanical", there are no moving parts.

  19. This is called a tablet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A kickstarter campaign to reproduce the iPad? Badly? Really?

  20. Membrane... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Let's not bring back the Atari 400 keyboard. I actually learned to type on that POS. The only benefit: soda proof.

    Child of the 80s. Get away from my planter box.

  21. What's the point? by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 1

    So they use overlays like the old Intellivision game console instead of using a colour display? With Apple's "force touch" coming soon to the iPad, it will be a much better solution.

    Also, minus several million points to Soulskill for not even linking to the Kickstarter page.