Touch-enabled

Touch sensitive displays have changed the way we interact with electronic devices everyday, evolving from single to multi-touch displays that can recognize multiple contacts. Now researchers at Disney Research, Pittsburgh, and Carnegie Mellon University have developed a touch sensitive technology called Touché that not only detects if and where someone is touching it, but how they are touching it.  Read More

There's no doubt about it, we live in a touch-enabled world. Everywhere you look there's a smartphone, tablet, laptop or computer obeying the fingertip commands of users. Separate input peripherals like keyboards and mice have also had their keys and buttons replaced by a smooth, touch-enabled surface. Although somewhat late to the party (Apple introduced its Magic Mouse as far back as 2009), Logitech is about to release its own Windows 7 mouse called the M600.  Read More

Even though touch-sensitive digital music interfaces like Roger Linn's LinnStrument offer users access to whole new worlds of sonic expression, there's still something very appealing about the feel of real wood beneath the fingers. The Soundplane Model A throws cold plastic playing surfaces out the window and presents players with 150 walnut keys incorporating patent-pending continuous capacitive sensing technology, for a computer music controller with the feel of an acoustic instrument.  Read More

With Apple bringing a few user interface elements found in its iOS mobile operating system to its upcoming OS X Lion desktop operating system, Microsoft is taking a similar tack for its Windows 8 OS. Previewed last week at the D9 Conference, the next generation of the Windows operating system borrows heavily from Windows Phone 7 by replacing the traditional Windows Start menu with a tile-based Start screen that provides a customizable, scalable full-screen view of apps on the system.  Read More

It’s truly touching news... no sooner do we hear about the pressure-sensitive artificial skin created at UC Berkeley, than fellow Californians at Stanford University announce that they have also created such a material. While Berkeley’s skin relies on carbon nanotubes to detect pressure, however, Stanford’s skin utilizes a thin rubber sheet made up of tiny pyramids. It is reportedly so sensitive that it can “feel” the weight of a butterfly.  Read More

Touch-screen interfaces have already usurped traditional buttons on a range of mobile devices that boast a larger screen size and/or smaller form factor by doing away with a wide range of buttons or dedicated keypad. Now buttons of all sorts on all sorts of devices are under assault. Just last week Apple declared war on mouse buttons, and now hearing technology company, Starkey Laboratories, has taken aim at fiddly hearing aid buttons with its "Sweep Technology" touch-based interface for hearing aids.  Read More

HP has burst forth and launched a range of multi-touch computing products comprising three new TouchSmart PCs and a fully-functional interactive 42-inch HD digital signage display, the HP LD4200. The company has also upgraded its multi-touch notebook range with new touch features.  Read More

TVs are no longer dumb receivers sitting in the corner of the lounge, displaying whatever trash the networks have decided to cram down our throats. Nowadays, a TV is just as likely to be hooked up to a home theater PC (HTPC) for playing games, accessing media content stored on a hard disk, or surfing the Internet. For more complex tasks like that, the humble remote starts to look a little underdone. That's where remote controls on steroids, such as the GlideTV Navigator, come in. It combines the functionality of a keyboard, mouse and AV remote control in one distinctive-looking unit that fits in the palm of your hand.  Read More

Light Blue Optics (LBO) has received an injection of funds to further its development of, among other things, a holographic laser projection technology. The big news is that this technology can be touch-enabled, meaning any flat surface, such as a table, can be instantly transformed into a touch-sensitive display, eliminating the need for a touch screen and allowing users to directly interact with multimedia content.  Read More