Turn any monitor into a touch-screen

Turning your monitor into a touchscreen could some day be as simple as peel … and stick. Displax, a Portugal-based company promises to turn any surface–flat or curved–into a touch sensitive display. The company has created a thinner-than-paper polymer film that can be stuck on glass, plastic or wood to turn it into an interactive input device. “It is extremely powerful, precise and versatile,” says Miguel Fonseca, chief business officer at Displax. “You can use our film with on top of anything including E Ink, OLED and LCD displays.” Human-computer interaction that goes beyond keyboards and mouse has become a hot new area of emerging technology. Since Apple popularized the swipe and pinch gestures with the iPhone, touch has become a new frontier in the way we interact with our devices. In the past, students have shown a touchscreen where pop-up buttons and keypads can dynamically appear and disappear. That allows the user to experience the physical feel of buttons on a touchscreen. In 2008, Microsoft offered Surface, a mulit-touch product that allows users to manipulate information using gesture recognition. Displax’s films can range from three inches to 120 inches diagonally. “If Displax can do this for larger displays, it will really be one of the first companies to do what we call massive multitouch,” says Daniel Wigdor, a user experience architect for Microsoft who focuses on multi-touch and gestural computing. “If you look at existing commercial technology for large touch displays they use infrared camera that can sense only two to four points of contact. Displax takes us to the next step.” Displax’ latest technology works on both opaque and transparent surfaces. The films have a 98 percent transparency–a measure of the amount of light that is reflected through the surface. “That’s a pretty decent transmission rate,” says Widgor. A grid of nanowires are embedded in the thin polymer film that is just about 100 microns thick. A microcontroller processes the multiple input signals it receivers from the grid. A finger or two placed on the screen causes an electrical disturbance. This is analyzed by the microcontroller to decode the location of each input on that grid. The film comes with its own firmware, driver–which connect via a USB connection–and a control panel for user calibration and settings. Currently, it can detect up to 16 fingers on a 50-inch screen. And the projective capacitance technology that Displax uses is similar to that seen on the iPhone, so the responsiveness of the touch surface is great, says Fonseca. And if feeling around the screen isn’t enough, Displax allows users to interact with the screen by blowing on it. Displax says the technology can also be applied to standard LCD screens. Displax’s versatility could make it valuable for a new generation of displays that are powering devices such as e-readers. For instance, at the Consumer Electronics Show last month, Pixel Qi showed low-power displays that can switch between an active color LCD mode and an e-reader-like, low-power black-and-white mode. Pixel Qi’s displays, along other emerging display technologies from the likes of Qualcomm’s Mirasol and E Ink’s color screen are keenly awaited in new products because they promise to offer a good e-reader and a netbook in a single device. But touch is a feature that is missing in these emerging displays. Displax could help solve that problem. It is also more versatile than Microsoft Surface, says Fonseca. “Our film is about 100 microns thick, while Surface is about 23-inches deep,” he says. “So we can slip into any hardware. Surface cannot be used with LCD screens so that can be a big limiting factor.” The comparisons to Surface may not be entirely fair, says Wigdor “Surface is not just another hardware solution,” he says. “It includes integrated software applications and vision technology so it can respond to just the shape of the object.” Still he says, Displax’s thin film offers a big breakthrough for display manufacturers because it they don’t have to make changes to their manufacturing process to use it. Displax says the first screens featuring its multi-touch technology will start shipping in July.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/...m-touchscreen/
http://www.displax.com/index.php

This better not make my eyes go bad. :/

What exactly in that entire article made you think this addition would make your eyes go bad?

Words, and full sentences.
More specifically the idea that I'll have to sit much close to touch the screen. Bad for the eyes.

Words, and full sentences. More specifically the idea that I'll have to sit much close to touch the screen. Bad for the eyes.

Are you an eye doctor? Are you anything other than a moron?

How do you know sitting closer would be bad for your eyes?

Sitting close to the T.V. is bad, so I assume sitting close to anything that has a screen and produces light (and consider white seems to be the major color on computers, a very bright light) is probably bad for the eyes.
Controllers let you have a pretty okay distance, while being up close... well, won't.

I've had glasses for about six years, and my prescription hasn't changed - -1.5 left, -1.75 right. In the past six years, I've started to use a computer more and more, and with a degree that deals solely with computers I finally have an excuse to sit in front of both of my monitors for 18 hours a day (sometimes periods of over 30 hours, if I've got a big deadline).

My eyes haven't deteriorated since the initial need for glasses.

Sitting close to the T.V. is bad,

I'm asking you what you are basing this assumption on, tard.

I've had glasses for about six years, and my prescription hasn't changed - -1.5 left, -1.75 right. In the past six years, I've started to use a computer more and more, and with a degree that deals solely with computers I finally have an excuse to sit in front of both of my monitors for 18 hours a day (sometimes periods of over 30 hours, if I've got a big deadline). My eyes haven't deteriorated since the initial need for glasses.

You're lucky! That's what my vision was in jr. high (8th grade) it's now at about 3.75 left eye and 4.25 in my right eye. I'm almost legally blind, but fortunately its genetics so I don't have much to worry about.

I'm asking you what you are basing this assumption on, tard.

Words.

Ahahahahah! Good game.

You killed the thread.


So, when are vertual reality goggles coming out, again? Been waiting for those almost as long as Zel has been waiting for D3.

The thread was dead 13 days before I posted, by your lame exscuse.