Understanding+Touchscreen+Technologies

=Understanding Touchscreen Technologies =

Introduction
 Technologies do evolve so fast, they become neat, compact and simple to used. Unlike before when we have to choose from a variety of buttons to do some certain things like view, send, receive accept, cancel and many more. But with new technologies like Touchscreens which makes devices more simplistic to look at and use, they can also help us see or even feel it more than the conventional buttons.

 Although many of us today still do not appreciate the touchscreen technologies and still prefer the old big buttons or even the tiny ones. Because some people still believes that the old non touchscreen buttons works faster and has more accurate responds.

 So which is better the touchscreen ones or the old regular buttons ?

 What is a Touchscreen?
According to Wikipedia, A touchscreen is an electronic visual display that can detect the presence and location of a touch within the display area. The term generally refers to touching the display of the device with a finger or hand. Touchscreens can also sense other passive objects, such as a stylus.

 The touchscreen has two main attributes. First, it enables one to interact directly with what is displayed, rather than indirectly with a cursor controlled by a mouse or touchpad. Secondly, it lets one do so without requiring any intermediate device that would need to be held in the hand. Such displays can be attached to computers, or to networks as terminals. They also play a prominent role in the design of digital appliances such as the personal digital assistant (PDA), satellite navigation devices, mobile phones, and video games.

History of Touchscreen
Also from Wikipedia, In 1971, the first "touch sensor" was developed by Doctor Sam Hurst (founder of Elographics) while he was an instructor at the University of Kentucky. This sensor, called the "Elograph," was patented by The University of Kentucky Research Foundation. The "Elograph" was not transparent like modern touch screens; however, it was a significant milestone in touch screen technology. In 1974, the first true touch screen incorporating a transparent surface was developed by Sam Hurst and Elographics. In 1977, Elographics developed and patented five-wire resistive technology, the most popular touch screen technology in use today. [5] Touchscreens first gained some visibility with the invention of the computer-assisted learning terminal, which came out in 1975 as part of the PLATO project. Touchscreens have subsequently become familiar in everyday life. Companies use touch screens for kiosk systems in retail and tourist settings, point of sale systems, ATMs, and PDAs, where a stylus is sometimes used to manipulate the GUI and to enter data. The popularity of smart phones, PDAs, portable game consoles and many types of information appliances is driving the demand for, and acceptance of, touchscreens.  media type="youtube" key="KmghYUG2Qho?fs=1" height="385" width="640" align="center"

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Touchscreen Evolution
 By Patrick Gorman

<span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;">Truly immersive experience design has received a big technological boost over the past few years, as touch-based interactive technology has evolved far beyond traditional 15-inch monitors and kiosks.

<span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> For the first 20 years of its existence, touchscreen technology only hinted at what its full potential could be. ATM machines and the occasional interactive museum exhibit let users choose their own path, but lacked in the creativity department.

<span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> Now, new surfaces from tabletops to suspended glass panels are fair game for touchscreen interactives that can be used by multiple people at the same time. Screens that recognize objects placed on or near them, and gesture-based technology where users control content with a flick of the wrist are now a reality—it’s now up to designers to take this technology and run with it.

<span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> Touch goes mainstream. Single-user, small monitor-based applications were the face of touchscreens for years—what’s happened recently to change all that? In the past, the touchscreen wasn’t much more than a glorified mouse. Now, the multi-touch space has emerged thanks to consumer electronics.

<span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> “The iPhone was able to bring a multi-touch technology to the table and bring it to millions of people well before the professional space was able to do it. Using more than one finger to touch the screen is a huge advancement over the past few years—forever it was a single-touch experience. It’s no longer about a bezeled monitor that looks like a monitor, it’s more about a surface that responds to touch and can respond to different types of touch,” says Operand partner Eric Mauriello, whose company specializes in technology-based interactive experiences.

<span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> Touch technology is getting a lot more traction and exposure thanks to consumer products like the iPhone and Microsoft’s Surface touchtable, plus the fact that the technology itself is just getting better.

<span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> “More recently the software has gotten more stable, and there is a better understanding of how the interface works within the hardware platform. It’s being rolled out into more public spaces, and more companies are feeling more comfortable using it,” says George Bird, a senior designer with Continuum.

<span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> Beyond monitors. New technologies such as infrared motion-sensing cameras are taking touch to places it has never gone before. The next step for designers will be to create the next generation of interactive touch surface applications.

<span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> “These larger touch surface forms are basically glass surfaces that don’t look like monitors; they don’t have a bezel around them. It could be a table, a wall, a window, it can be any flat surface that has a substrate on one side of it that registers single or multi-touch or has cameras,” Mauriello says.

<span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> These custom interactive walls, tables, and windows are currently coming from smaller providers. They’re heavily rigged up with projectors and cameras, and when users touch the surface, infrared light is reflected back to the sensors. This allows multiple users to interact at the same time.

<span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> “We see this as an exciting turn of events where these things don’t have to look like monitors, and don’t have to be 19 inches or 32 inches,” Mauriello says.

<span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> Exploring possibilities. Designers are now feeling that the chains have been released from this technology—it doesn’t have to look like a monitor, it doesn’t have to be on a table or a wall, it can be suspended glass, or glass embedded into environmental scenes. They now have creative license to really blend a touch experience into any type of physical environment using projection technology.

<span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> For example, Continuum recently designed a retail environment for Sprint that featured multi-user interactive touchtables.

<span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> On the table screen surface, visitors have a “placemat” of information including songs and wireless technolgy applications to choose from, and the screen allows them to slide these bits around and share them with friends.

<span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> “The tables work really well with one person, but they really come alive when there are multiple people there. You can really start sharing information and data across the top of the table,” Bird days.

<span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> The infrared camera-based TacTable product used in the design was familiar to Bird, who had used it in museum projects and thought it would carry over perfectly to retail.

<span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> In addition to the user-touch interface, physical coasters with information embedded within are located throughout the store. One coaster focuses on Sprint mobile TV service, with a graphic of an old school remote control. When visitors take the coaster and place it on the tabletop, the cameras recognize a printed pattern on the back of the coaster, and a TV appears on the tabletop. Users can then change the channels on the TV by turning the coaster.

<span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> “Projection used to be all about watching video, but now it’s about watching and interacting. The convergence of multi-touch technology, the convergence of projection and glass surface—these are things that have come together in the past two years, and it’s changing the game completely for touch,” Mauriello says.

<span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> What’s next. There have been so many new breakthroughs in the past two years, the experts don’t think designers have had time to consume all of them and put them into practice yet.

<span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> “Only the newest venues have multi-touch experiences. The future in the next two years will be deploying what has been created in the last two years. The price points are still fairly expensive, and that’s all going to drop over time,” Mauriello says.

<span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> But the technology has proved that it’s mature enough and ready for prime time. The future will see applications where video, cell phones, and gesture come together.

<span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> “You can be two feet away from the source and interacting—you don’t even have to touch anything, it will become gesture-based. We’re moving into the 3D realm where your whole body becomes a mouse,” Bird says.