Stylus
While fingers are by far and away the most popular form of input device for touchscreens these days, using a stylus offers an accuracy that stubby fingers like mine just can’t match. While just about any stick of plastic will do for resistive touchscreens, capacitive touchscreens that rely on a distortion of the screen’s electrostatic field require a stylus that is electrically conducting. If your day finds you switching between devices that use different touchscreen technologies then the new Quillit 3 in 1 Stylus Pen from Proporta will cover all the bases. It will even let you interact with that most ancient of displays – paper – as it its third function is as an ordinary pen. Read More
See what you're drawing with the oStylus touchscreen stylus
If you've ever tried to create a work of digital art on an iPad then you may have suffered the frustration of not being able to see exactly what's going on directly beneath your finger. Even a stylus can't offer an ideal view of the exact edge of those thin outlines. Looking somewhat like it should be in the hands of a dentist, the oStylus solves this by giving tablet artists a porthole to the screen beneath. There's no need for cables or driver software, the capacitive screen for which this device was designed simply registers the flat disc at the end as though it was a human digit. Read More
Fujitsu has announced the release of multi-input resistive touch panels with the ability to detect simultaneous inputs. This means that potentially you could have input coming from your finger and from a stylus at the very same time. While multi-touch is nothing new to most readers (especially those with a taste for Apple products), it should be clarified that this functionality is normally associated with capacitive touch screens and not resistive panels like these new ones from Fujitsu. Read More
When is an eBook reader not merely an eBook reader? When it’s an enTourage eDGE reader. Unveiled this week at CES the clamshell designed reader is billed as the world’s first dualbook, with a 9.7” black and white E-ink screen on the one side and 10.1” LCD color touchscreen on the other. Along with 4GB of internal memory and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capability, the unit functions as a mini-netbook, notepad and audio/video recorder. Read More
A new model Nintendo DSi console is being launched this month in Japan with larger 4.2-inch dual screens and a larger stylus. The DSi LL will be bundled with three DSiWare titles pre-installed – a dictionary and two brain training games, and a large and smaller touch pen. It will, however, have the same resolution as the previous DSi. Nintendo says the battery can last around four-five hours in extensive use mode and approximately 13-17 hours in energy-saving mode. These are around 25 percent improvements over previous models. Read More
LG has announced the release of its first foray in to the Android powered world of smartphones, the LG-GW620, aimed at meeting the demands of both first time and existing smartphone users. Read More
Older Gizmag readers may remember the Etch A Sketch, a child’s doodling utensil that used aluminium powder and a glass screen to draw horizontal and vertical lines and the Magna Doodle, a similar product that used a magnetic drawing board. A cheap and cheerful version of the latter, often called the ‘magic slate’, consisted of a pad and stylus that allowed scribbles to be erased by lifting off and replacing a film of plastic. This concept has now been rather cleverly turned into a Mouse Pad called the Scratch-n-Scroll. Read More
Olympus has announced the newest addition to its fashion-oriented ultracompact digital camera line: the Stylus-7010. The new 1-inch thick model featuring 12MP resolution and a 7x wide-angle/long-zoom lens (equivalent to a 28-196mm zoom) plus some tuned-up shooting modes and "Magic Filters" for in-camera editing. Read More
November 27, 2008 The Apple iPhone is clearly one of the most significant technological manifestations in history, but as much as we love it, it ain’t perfect. Typing on the virtual keyboard is difficult unless you have anorexic fingers and 20-20 vision and even then, input is painfully slow. Several manufacturers have developed viable variants of a high-tech stylus for the iPod Touch and iPhone capacitive touch screens and the best we’ve seen so far is the Pogo Stylus. Like many other online retailers this Black Friday (November 28) week, Ten One Design has slashed its prices early and is offering a 25 percent discount, meaning the Pogo can be had for US$14.96 including free USPS shipping. Read More
June 29, 2007 Gateway has updated its professional convertible notebook series to include a new pressure sensitive stylus and biometric security features. Tailored as durable electronic palette for digital art applications, the E-295C facilitates direct input onto its swivelling 14-inch screen and recognizes 256 levels of sensitivity to achieve the simulation of paint on canvas. Read More
