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Touchscreen
Pressure sensitive technology set to bring 3D capability to touchscreens
By Darren Quick
18:55 January 31, 2010 PST
Touchscreens found in most mobile devices today use capacitance or resistance technology - fine for detecting input from a finger, but not so great when it comes to detecting how much pressure that finger is applying. However, this limitation could be about to change with news that Japanese touch screen manufacturer, Nissha, has licensed new technology that allows a touchscreen to detect pressure, even from a finger. This adds a third dimension to touchscreen interaction and opens up a raft of potential applications. Read More
HP's Touchless touchscreen wall
By Ben Coxworth
16:29 January 26, 2010 PST
About a year ago, HP began working on a ginormous touchscreen display for their PR firm’s Manhattan offices. The resulting product, called the Wall of Touch, was such a hit that it has found its way into the workplaces of other select clients, with more on the way. Ironically, despite its name, one of the things that makes the Wall unique is that users don’t have to actually touch it. Read More
DEMO: Plastic Logic Que proReader hands-on
By Jeff Salton
21:11 January 25, 2010 PST
Gizmag met with PlasticLogic, the makers of the QUE ProReader eBook reader/tablet - one of the most versatile and powerful eReaders to hit the market. The Que ProReader measures the size of standard piece of office paper (8.5 x 11 inches) and focuses on the business professional. Though not designed to replace your laptop or smartphone, it is designed to make paper redundant. Already there are more than 1 million pieces of online content that can be downloaded and viewed on the device. Plus you can print from your computer to the QUE Pro to carry your personal documents with you, or use it as a back-up device. Connectivity options abound with built-in WiFi, 3G and Bluetooth. Read More
Synaptics debuts Fuse next-generation mobile phone concept
By Ben Coxworth
23:22 January 24, 2010 PST
Last December, the world was introduced to the Synaptics Fuse, a new concept in mobile communications. The prototype smartphone is the result of a collaboration between Synaptics, Texas Instruments, Immersion, TheAlloy and The Astonishing Tribe (TAT). What makes this phone so special is its user/phone interface. It takes Synaptics’ pioneering touchscreen technology to a whole new level, allowing people to use the phone one-handed, and without having to even see the screen. Read More
The age of the Misa Digital Guitar has dawned
By Paul Ridden
12:29 January 22, 2010 PST
A software engineer based in Sydney, Australia has created a digital guitar controlled by open source software which he hopes will see musicians play electronic music in a live environment. Players control the pitch, speed and volume of notes produced by the Misa Digital Guitar via a 24 'fret' neck and touchscreen interface. Read More
SilverSTAT 7 touchscreen home energy management solution
By Alan Brandon
00:45 January 19, 2010 PST
SilverPAC has announced a new touchscreen programmable thermostat that not only controls your heating and air conditioning, but can communicate with smart home meters, outlets, and switches to help you manage your entire household energy use. The SilverSTAT 7 features 802.11 WiFi, plus ZigBee and Z-Wave wireless communications. The 7in. (17.8cm) display can show energy use on a per-appliance basis to help you analyze and adjust your home’s consumption and efficiency. Read More
Kia teams with Microsoft to develop the UVO voice controlled in-car infotainment system
By Mick Webb
21:55 January 13, 2010 PST
In addition to its recent 7-year / 150,000km warranty announcement, Kia has created further interest with the showing of its UVO in-car voice and touch activated communication and entertainment system. Developed in collaboration with Microsoft, the system offers users an easy to use interactive hands-free alternative that uses speech recognition for making and taking calls, sending text messages and managing in-car music. Featuring a 4.3” full color touchscreen display and built-in 1GB storage with the ability to rip CD’s and MP3’s onto the system’s “Jukebox”, the open platform UVO system also doubles as a rear view camera when the vehicle is in reverse. Read More
Intel takes Home Energy Management to a whole new level
By Mick Webb
21:36 January 9, 2010 PST
With home energy consumption and ways to reduce and manage it becoming an increasingly important issue, Intel has at this weeks CES shown its Intelligent Home Energy Management concept. Taking the form of a Wi-Fi enabled 11.5” touchscreen dashboard, the wall mounted system enables users to not only track their household’s monthly energy usage, but offers a host of other features like leaving video memos for other family members and a “goodbye” switch that instantly configures all appliances to their least consumptive setting – as well as reminding the user if they have left the stove on. Read More
enTourage announces eDGe dual screen eBook reader
By Mick Webb
03:07 January 9, 2010 PST
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
Store, sort and share - the Kodak Slice Touchscreen digital camera (and pocket photo album)
By Mick Webb
21:10 January 8, 2010 PST
No longer just a device intended to capture images, the digital camera becomes a veritable pocket photo album with the latest offering from Kodak, the Slice Touchscreen. Featuring a 3.5” LCD touchscreen 5X optical zoom and 14MP resolution, the Slice also packs a 2GB internal memory with tagging functionality. This not only recognizes up to 20 faces allowing the user to tag photos by person, place, date or occasion, but also lets the user tag photos for easy uploading to sites like Flickr and Facebook. Read More
TomTom EASE - small package, small pricetag GPS to hit US stores
By Paul Ridden
19:56 January 7, 2010 PST
TomTom's EASE is the latest addition to its satellite navigation family and brings all the functionality, ease of use and practicality of its siblings at a fraction of the cost. Launched at CES in Las Vegas this week, the EASE blends a simple two icon interface menu, an integrated fold-away mount and the company's proprietary Map Share and IQ Routes - all for around a hundred US dollars. Read More
Skiff shows 11.5 inch 1200 x 1600 touchscreen electronic-paper reader
By Ben Coxworth
11:00 January 6, 2010 PST
This week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, e-reading company Skiff is previewing its new electronic reader. At a quarter of an inch thick, the Skiff Reader is the thinnest device of its kind. Not everything about it is small, however; its 1200 x 1600 pixel, 11.5-inch screen is the largest and highest-resolution consumer e-reading display yet. Perhaps its biggest boast, however, is what that display is made of – Instead of rigid, fragile glass, the Skiff Reader’s display utilizes a thin, flexible sheet of stainless-steel foil. Developed by LG specifically for Skiff, the touchscreen foil-display promises an e-reader that will be much more durable than anything currently available. Read More
Canon files touchscreen DSLR patent
By Darren Quick
19:23 December 6, 2009 PST
Touchscreens have almost become standard on point and shoot digital compact cameras. The same can’t be said for more enthusiast/professional oriented DSLRs, mainly because of the different ways both types of cameras are used. Compacts are generally held out in front of the photographer who checks the framing via the camera’s LCD screen. DSLRs, on the other hand, are often still used with the photographer’s face mashed up against the rear of the camera to frame a shot using the optical viewfinder. This would wreak havoc with a touchscreen as the photographer’s nose goes about changing all those carefully nurtured manual settings. But a new patent application from Canon could solve the problem and see touchscreens appearing on DSLRs as well. Read More
Multimedia on the move - the JVC Kenwood AVENUE MDV-313 navigation system
By Mick Webb
15:03 December 6, 2009 PST
JVC and Kenwood has produced its first in-car navigation system since last years merger and it certainly offers more than directions for getting from A to B. As well as boasting virtual 3D maps and fast response times, the AVENUE MDV-313 features a 6.1” touchscreen LED backlit display, integrated DVD player and TV tuner, as well as USB and SD card slots and optional iPod connectivity. Read More
1GHz LG eXpo smartphone features snap on pico-projector
By Jenna Meade
19:04 December 1, 2009 PST
The Smartphone keeps getting smarter and the just announced LG eXpo is no exception. Featuring a 1 GHz processor, the design combines a slide out QWERTY keypad, external touchscreen, 5.0 megapixel camera and fingerprint recognition with the option of a snap-on mobile projector to serve up what looks to be a powerful mobile office tool. Read More
The Vega touchscreen tablet from ICD
By Paul Ridden
14:21 November 17, 2009 PST
Innovative Converged Devices (ICD) has unveiled its new Vega 15 inch touchscreen tablet, an Android-powered communication and media device that features wireless 802.11b/g, Bluetooth and 3G connectivity, a Tegra combined application and graphics processor from NVIDIA, an ambient light sensor and accelerometer. Read More
Something for everyone with NTT DoCoMo's new mobile phones
By Darren Quick
21:50 November 16, 2009 PST
Japan’s biggest mobile phone operator, NTT DoCoMo, has unveiled a raft of new phones – 19 in all – along with a 3G-capable digital photo frame. The new lineup includes the waterproof F-02B (complete with snap-on perfume holder), four models packing a 12.2-megapixel camera and the world’s first phone with a separable two-module body. Read More
Storyplay: Nokia and Sesame Street create video conferencing in a book
By Paul Ridden
16:49 November 3, 2009 PST
Nokia has teamed up with Sesame Street to create an interactive reading experience that can involve grandparents and grandchildren no matter how far apart they may find themselves. The Storybook research project melds the tactile and visual pleasures of reading a real book with video conferencing technology which allows distant relatives to take an active part in a child's literacy development. Read More
eviGroup enters touchscreen tablet market with 'the Pad'
By Paul Ridden
05:27 November 2, 2009 PST
It's only been a short while since eviGroup's Wallet MID was released and the French tech company has already unleashed its bigger sister - the Pad. With an Atom processor at its heart, a 160GB hard drive, WiFi, 3G and Windows 7 Home Premium, is this touchscreen tablet PC an Archos killer? Read More
Acer Aspire Z5610 offers multi-touch support for Windows 7
By Paul Lester
17:15 October 27, 2009 PDT
The response to the release of Windows 7 has been generally very positive, bringing Microsoft some much needed respite from the issues that plagued Vista over the last few years. One of the more interesting facets of the new OS is the inclusion of touchscreen support, which seems to have been of particular interest to Acer, which recently released its first touchscreen notebook and has followed up with a touchscreen All-in-one PC - the Aspire Z5610-U9072. Read More
Plastic Logic QUE proReader set for CES launch
By Jeff Salton
04:21 October 27, 2009 PDT
Plastic Logic has flagged the unveiling of its business user focused QUE proReader eReader at CES next January. The company says the eReader market to date has focused on leisure reading devices and casual users, so the QUE is designed for the busy executive who wants to access his or her business media in an electronic easy-to-read format. What this amounts too is an eReader roughly the same size as an 8.5 x 11-inch pad of paper, less than 1/3 inch thick, weighing less than many periodicals and boasting the largest touchscreen in the industry. Read More
Barnes & Noble Nook e-Book reader announced
By Paul Ridden
09:44 October 22, 2009 PDT
The world's largest bookseller, Barnes & Noble, has confirmed it is to enter the e-Reader market with a device called the nook. Powered by Android 1.5 and sporting the now familiar e-Ink text display, the nook also benefits from a 3.5-inch color touchscreen interface for library browsing and book ordering. It allows wireless access to over a million eBooks, magazines and newspapers and purchases can be shared with friends. Read More
The interactive 3D Virtual Autopsy Table
By Paul Ridden
16:17 October 20, 2009 PDT
Swedish researchers have developed an interactive touchscreen 3D autopsy table that allows pathologists to examine virtual representations of real bodies in minute detail and from numerous viewing angles. Using data provided by scans of an actual body, the table allows the user to remove layers such as skin and muscle, add or remove tissue and circulatory systems, zoom in and out and cut through sections with a virtual knife. The video below is a "must watch". Read More
10/GUI the human computer interface of the future for people with more than two fingers
By Darren Quick
03:43 October 14, 2009 PDT
Those old enough to remember the command line interfaces of yesteryear are only too aware of what a godsend the Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) of today are. However, the human computer interface (HCI) developed in the 1970s at Xerox PARC, combining a desktop metaphor GUI and mouse controller, has remained largely unchanged ever since. Now R. Clayton Miller proposes the next step in the evolution of HCI's with his 10/GUI concept that harnesses the power of multi-touch by removing the touch surface from the screen. Read More
Kempler & Strauss W Phonewatch
By Paul Ridden
14:35 October 12, 2009 PDT
Being able to hold a conversation on a wrist-bound communicator has been a staple of popular fiction for many a year, but real world offerings have so far been a bit of a hit and miss affair. Things recently improved with devices from LG and Samsung but they're somewhat expensive solutions. Now Kempler & Strauss has launched the quad-band W Phonewatch which threatens to shake things up a bit. Offering similar functionality to its competitors at a fraction of the cost, the W also comes with its own Bluetooth headset that doubles as a stylus and MP3 control. Read More
Mr Stiffy
- February 9, 2010 @ 06:26 UTC
