The iPhone brought with it a capacitive touchscreen that included a brand-new feature for the consumer market: multi-touch. Apple claims it invented the technology, but in reality they purchased FingerWorks to assist in iPhone development and only popularized it.
The multi-touch capabilities of the new smartphone added more functions than those found in single-touch devices. This is why Apple decided to use the more expensive capacitive screen.
However, it relies on the electrical charge of human skin and cannot be used with a glove or a normal stylus. The Apple iPad was released in , creating another market for touchscreen devices. The first truly mainstream tablet was apparently worked on before iPhone, and its release touches on a speech made in by Steve Jobs: "What we want to do is we want to put an incredibly great computer in a book that you can carry around with you and learn how to use in 20 minutes Not only are most of our phones equipped with touchscreens, but our portable computers are too.
Now that touchscreens are in the public consciousness, more and more businesses are using them to for connecting with customers. The easy-to-use design of tablets makes them perfect for featuring digital catalogs or self-checkout areas. Companies also bring them to trade shows, showing their portfolio to passersby that can browse at their own pace.
Large touchscreen stands are another great promotional tool for businesses. These kiosks provide a large area that allow customers to browse through products, menu items, maps and more. These customizable digital displays make it easy for anyone to navigate through a business's presentation.
The stands support up to ten points of contact and wireless connectivity, allowing companies to feature almost anything they want. We've come so far in creating new ways to interact with computers, what could possibly come next? One new development is right around the corner: flexible smartphones. Samsung has featured prototypes since of devices with a bending screen and there have been successive rumors over the years about an impending release.
This design would be great for smartphones, which are often damaged from minor bends. However, it's difficult keeping all the different parts of the device in contact with each other when the case flexes. Samsung believes it will have the first flexible smartphone out in , but the technology is still unproven.
Why limit the touch display to the device? Why not project the touchscreen onto any surface? OmniTouch attempts to accomplish this by with a projector that puts the display on walls, tables, books, and even on human skin while a camera detects the input. Imagine answering a text on your arm rather than having to pull out your phone! The model showed in by Chris Harringon was a shoulder-mounted wearable computer. The "always-available" surface has not seen much development in recent years, but it might make a comeback when technology catches up.
After all, it took 24 years after the first smartphone was released before they became popular! What if we could feel the screen when we touch it? A touchscreen with advanced haptic technology could change to feel like different textures or feature physical bumps as buttons. This was demonstrated by Tanvas at the Consumer Electronics Show in , featuring different types of fabric. Reporters say that the screen didn't magically feel like these textures, but they could definitely feel the difference between them.
In time this could be one of the many features incorporated into smartphones! Put touch controls anywhere without being limited to a physical surface. In , the company Ultrahaptics demonstrated ultrasonic sound waves that change air pressure and create interactive 3D objects.
It sounds crazy, but it works. These controls are totally invisible but they can be felt and interacted with like a physical knob or lever. The ultrasound sensations won't create a wall that your hand couldn't move through, but you'd definitely be able to feel it.
Ultrahaptics is looking to incorporate the technology in cars, giving drivers extra control without the need to look at a screen. Even without the extra features, the early touch interface idea had some takers.
Johnson's discovery was eventually adopted by air traffic controllers in the UK and remained in use until the late s. Although capacitive touchscreens were designed first, they were eclipsed in the early years of touch by resistive touchscreens.
American inventor Dr. Samuel Hurst developed resistive touchscreens almost accidentally. The Berea College Magazine for alumni described it like this:. To study atomic physics the research team used an overworked Van de Graff accelerator that was only available at night. Tedious analyses slowed their research. Sam thought of a way to solve that problem. He, Parks, and Thurman Stewart, another doctoral student, used electrically conductive paper to read a pair of x- and y- coordinates.
That idea led to the first touch screen for a computer. With this prototype, his students could compute in a few hours what otherwise had taken days to accomplish. Hurst and the research team had been working at the University of Kentucky.
The university tried to file a patent on his behalf to protect this accidental invention from duplication, but its scientific origins made it seem like it wasn't that applicable outside the laboratory. Hurst, however, had other ideas. In his basement, Hurst and nine friends from various other areas of expertise set out to refine what had been accidentally invented. The group called its fledgling venture " Elographics, " and the team discovered that a touchscreen on a computer monitor made for an excellent method of interaction.
Through the mobile devices we use, touchscreens are literally putting the world at our fingertips morning, noon, and night. In E. Johnson invented, what is generally considered the first finger driven touchscreen. Using the force of a touch, the technology required a conductive layer to contact a separate layer below containing an X and Y axis, the coordinates were then transmitted to a computer.
Later in , the first transparent resistive touchscreen was developed by Hurst and his team the Elographics and was patented in This gestural interaction was then used by American computer Artist, Myron Krueger, to design an optical system that could track hand movements.
Originally known as Video Place, it later became Video Desk in This system used projectors and video cameras to track hands, fingers, and the people they belonged to. A real step forward came in when Bob Boie, of Bell Labs, created a new transparent touch overlay, by utilising a capacitive array over a CRT. This advancement led to the capacitive technology we see today in tablets and smartphones.
Advanced for its time, it featured paging capabilities, an e-mail, an appointment schedule, an address book, a calculator, and a resistive touchscreen operated with a stylus to navigate through menus and to input data.
Westerman then formed a company called FingerWorks, and began manufacturing gesture-based products, including the iGesture pad; a PDA device that allowed one handed gesturing. FingerWorks was eventually bought by Apple in , and the technology became widely available in their phones and music players in This innovative new range of control electronics allows touch screens to be designed with ultra-narrow inactive borders and even facilitate the integration of contact-less peripheral systems such as NFC payment, and phone charging alongside the touch sensors.
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