Touch Screen

We've all seen gigantic touch screens on the news or in movies, but what if you could achieve the same type of interface by simply replacing the bulb in your desk lamp? That's the idea behind the LuminAR, developed by a team led by Natan Linder at the MIT Media Lab's Fluid Interfaces Group. It combines a Pico-projector, camera, and wireless computer to project interactive images onto any surface - and is small enough to screw into a standard light fixture.  Read More

Since the release of its first E-ink watch in 2007, Art Technology’s Phosphor brand has steadily added a number of wristwatches boasting E-ink display technology like that used in eReaders, such as Amazon’s Kindle. For the latest addition to its range, however, Phosphor has eschewed the E-ink display in favor of an “always on” LCD display with capacitance touchscreen technology that allows access to the watches’ various functions with a swipe or a tap.  Read More

While this week the web is full of talk about Microsoft's Surface tablet, it's less well known that that Microsoft originally used the name "Surface" for a prototype multitouch table. Commonly used in public settings such as museums, these tables have been brought to market in recent years by developers like New Mexico-based Ideum, which is now releasing its fourth-generation multitouch table.  Read More

The Telikin is a new touchscreen family computer designed to make everyday tasks as easy as possible. It is clearly aimed at the older user, which explains why its most vaunted features are social in nature, and make a lot of sense for grandparents with distant relatives. Video chat (thanks to a built-in camera), photo sharing and email are first among its advertised features - all of which come ready to use out of the box, provided an internet connection is available, of course.  Read More

The Amazon Kindle Touch is quite a remarkable little machine. In many ways, it can be seen as a halfway point between the Fourth Generation Kindle e-Reader and the Kindle Fire Tablet. However, it's not simply a glorified reader, nor is it a stripped down tablet. Rather, it is another way in which Amazon is building on its lead in the e-Reader market by optimizing the reader interface and user controls. With the Kindle Touch sure to find its way under many a tree this holiday season we put the device through its paces with a hands-on review.  Read More

Undergraduate student, Adam Duran, made excellent use of his time at Stanford University, where he attended a two-month summer course organized by the Army High-Performance Computing Research Center (AHPCRC). Together with his mentors, Adrian Lew and Sohan Dharmaraja, he created a potentially game changing application that should make the lives of visually impaired people both easier and less expensive. The application turns a tablet into a Braille writer and thus saves the blind from having to purchase a device that may cost up to ten times more than a tablet.  Read More

Taking on the idea that daily smartphone use can create automatic touch recall, just like touch typing on a keyboard, students at the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam, Germany, have created the "imaginary phone" concept that turns the palm of a hand into a smartphone touch interface. Using spatial memory built up while operating the physical device to remember gestures and the relative position of icons on the phone, users can perform simple smartphone tasks without even taking it out of your pocket.  Read More

Those of us who grew up in the 70s or 80s may remember the Choose Your Own Adventure books. Instead of reading the book straight through, from cover to cover, at the bottom of each page you were presented with a choice like, “If you decide to open the treasure chest, turn to page 24 / If you decide to go farther into the cave, turn to page 32.” Interactive movies follow the same model, except the viewer’s choices result in seeing different scenes instead of reading different pages. While such films have been around since the invention of video disc players, a new one from Israel uniquely incorporates today’s technology.  Read More

A faster and more natural text input app for small devices, which mimics handwriting and eliminates typos. Sounds good? That is what the 8pen app for Android touch phones offers.  Read More