UX buzzspree » touch screens

Skinput: Skin-based touch screen

gary — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 20:17:30 +0000

Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University demonstrate body acoustics technology which can turn your skin into a touch screen. They call this “Skinput.” Clever name.

Skinput: Appropriating the Body as an Input Surface (CHI 2010)

‘See-through’ touchscreens

gary — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 19:53:34 +0000

New Scientist has a report on a “see through” touch screen that solves the problem of fingers obscuring the view of the screen during use. This seems to be a helpful and useful addition to small touch screens like on cell-phones, game systems, cameras and PDA’s. Of course, larger touch screens like Kiosks have less of a problem with obscuring view so this technology would not be appropriate. (You don’t usually hold the back of the screen on a kiosk.)

Video: The new NanoTouch device in action

Electronic devices have been shrinking for years, but you might be forgiven for thinking that one that’s only a centimetre across would be just too difficult to operate.

Now tests of a prototype device only slightly larger than this have shown that it can be made perfectly usable by combining a screen on the front with a touch-sensitive pad on the back. Read more…

Touch screens Rising

gary — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 20:59:22 +0000

A report from Gartner covered below predicts that more computers will incorporate touch screens and other interfaces while the mouse will loose favor. I agree more desktop and laptop computers will have touch, including multi-touch. I’d expect Apple to lead the way in this very soon (or take the credit after some other company releases touch computers without any media interest).

The computer mouse is set to die out in the next five years and will be usurped by touch screens and facial recognition, analysts believe.

Gartner said that innovations from electronics firms creating new interactive interfaces for gaming and smartphones are driving the demise of the mouse. Read more…