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Han's touch display is made of clear acrylic with light-emitting diodes attached to the edges, illuminating the six-millimeter-thick acrylic piece with infrared light. Normally, the light from the diodes reflects along predictable paths within the acrylic, a physical phenomenon called total internal reflection. However, once a finger or other object touches the acrylic, the internally reflecting light diffuses at the point of contact, scattering outside the surface. Behind the acrylic surface, there is a camera that captures this light. Using simple image-processing software, the captured scattering is interpreted in real time as discrete touches and strokes.
Many researchers who've been working for decades on touch technology are excited to see these developments. "For almost two decades, we've been trapped by the tyranny of the screen, the mouse, and the keyboard," says Don Norman, professor at Northwestern University, in Chicago, and author of The Design of Future Things, to be published in October. "It's nice to think we're breaking away from that and going toward touch-screen manipulation in the real physical world."
Some researchers are even developing touchable displays that can touch back. The emerging technology that enables this is called haptics. (See "The Cutting Edge of Haptics.") One type of haptics technology involves a surface that senses when it's touched and then vibrates at various frequencies, depending on the placement of one's fingers. This sort of technology could be useful for the touch keyboard on Apple's iPhone, says Scott Klemmer, professor of computer science at Stanford University. "You wouldn't get the tactile feel of real buttons, but [because of the vibrations] you can tell you've touched a real button."
A clear composite material could make multitouch screens sensitive to pressure.
Electrovibration could make for a better sensory experience on a smooth touch surface.
A new crop of touch-based devices is changing the way users interact with Web pages.
That screen presented by Jeff Han is truly amazing. I can't wait to put my greedy hands on one of those :)
Thanks for the article!
Desk size and I get rid of paper
Give me a desk size version and I get rid of all the paper in a flash.
While I might get a screen the size of a desk these days, manipulating the displayed content by mouse (and/or keyboard/graphics tablet) is just not as intuitive as "touching" it with my own hands.
I have been waiting on the re-emergence of this technology for years now, and it seems logical that a company like Apple Inc. would have picked up on it, since it fits in line with their culture of bring new advances in visual computer technology to the market place (see the link below for a video).
It is imaginable that the first applications will be control panel displays for visual arts applications of which Apple made itself a leader in that market segment. I am seriously interested in buying this technology. To that end, the general computing market might find a strong uses for Multi-touch screens; however, the software interfaces of many common programs would not immediately support the interactive that the Multi-touch offer (imaging using word or Microsoft paint with this, there would be little if any benefit). Thus, partnering with companies like Adobe to bring out software packages supporting of this type of interactive will be necessary for the main stream visual arts market to jump onboard.
Brian Glassman
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interesting article
An interesting article on a new company which has developed a low cost touchscreen technology which works for any screen dimension and any other solid material:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/10/business/pttouch.php
a video is present as well.
http://nytimes.feedroom.com/?fr_story=b99e03d8928a07c6c06203be8ba83642a97152b3
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