Essay @ Kustom
24-08-2007, 16:47
Touch screens are fantastic and not only feel futuristic, but create an immediacy and a direct relationship between the user and the content on screen, giving it that much fabled "my mother could use it" practicality.
However, anyone who has used one for a short while ( even if it's just the Nintendo DS rather than the iPhone ) will have noticed that your hand tends to obscure the screen in certain circumstances. Many displays try to get around this problem by utilising a stylus pen, which since it is long and thin, keeps your hand at a distance and only covers a small area of the screen. Unfortunately, it doesn't always work too well.
And that's where researchers at Microsoft and Mitsubishi come in, working on a double sided touch screen, that allows you to touch the content from underneath, manipulating the data without covering it up completely.
The current prototype uses a singe sided screen ( to display the content ) , a touch pad ( stuck to the back of the screen to allow manipulation ), a camera ( that captures the users hands ) and a separate desktop computer ( that takes the images of the hands and superimposes them onto the screen ). A lot of hard work for a simple concept, but it's just a prototype right now.
I can see good things coming from this, should it be developed further. Full story can be found here (http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/19300/)
http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/news/tech/lucidtouch_x220.jpg
However, anyone who has used one for a short while ( even if it's just the Nintendo DS rather than the iPhone ) will have noticed that your hand tends to obscure the screen in certain circumstances. Many displays try to get around this problem by utilising a stylus pen, which since it is long and thin, keeps your hand at a distance and only covers a small area of the screen. Unfortunately, it doesn't always work too well.
And that's where researchers at Microsoft and Mitsubishi come in, working on a double sided touch screen, that allows you to touch the content from underneath, manipulating the data without covering it up completely.
The current prototype uses a singe sided screen ( to display the content ) , a touch pad ( stuck to the back of the screen to allow manipulation ), a camera ( that captures the users hands ) and a separate desktop computer ( that takes the images of the hands and superimposes them onto the screen ). A lot of hard work for a simple concept, but it's just a prototype right now.
I can see good things coming from this, should it be developed further. Full story can be found here (http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/19300/)
http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/news/tech/lucidtouch_x220.jpg