A Turning Point for Touch Screens, Says the NYT 129
The New York Times has a story up on the suddenly brisk market for touch screens and the devices which can make use of them, which it says "has grown quietly for years, both in commercial applications and in consumer devices." Besides the obvious (the iPhone, and Apple's use of multi-touch generally), the article also mentions the recent inclusion of Israeli company N-Trig's version of multi-touch technology in a Dell notebook computer, and some of the other places you can expect to see touchscreens instead of display-only ones in the near future — if the price drops quickly enough.
Re:If sci fi movies are anything to go by.. (Score:2, Insightful)
There's the Optimus Tactus [artlebedev.com] concept, which is exactly that: a programmable surface that can be any keyboard (or even input device) you want.
In my opinion the real breakthrough for that class of device is going to come when they get haptic feedback to work with multitouch screens. Haptic feedback is when you literally "feel" the virtual buttons. There are some promising advances there.
A little too much (Score:4, Insightful)
Over the years I think I've touched my screen a little too much.
Seriously, regarding LCD reliability- has anyone studied it after thousands of touches, some low pressure, some higher pressure? When I touch my LCD screen, it turns dark around my finger. Doesn't look good to me.
Not a single mention of the DS... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I'm surprised that consumers want them... (Score:5, Insightful)
And whenever there is a touch panel it will also be clogged by the dirty fingers people have.
Just take a look at some people's keyboards where a large amount of brownish residue of unknown origin is accumulated.
Many remotes also have an accumulation of some residue that you probably don't want to examine further, and by having a touch display you will get that residue even more visible.
Re:I'm surprised that consumers want them... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:bad idea (Score:2, Insightful)
All our POS products are based on touchscreen technology. And they work very well.
Of course, on modern POS you don't type in numbers as you used to do in yesteryear - that's why we have barcodes and more recently RFID.
Touchscreens allow you to offer a fully dynamic user interface that adopts to the current situation. It work wells, as long as you do not need to do any sort of more-than-occasional data entry.