Comments on: Touch Feels Its Way Into Computing

By: I Want to Give My Computer the Finger

I Want to Give My Computer the Finger — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:36:08 +0000

[...] active). My vision requires the aforementioned glove and possibly a pretty sharp video camera, or a whole set of video cameras, to make gesture controls even more effective. Feel free to tell me how this will or won’t [...]

By: One more time for good measure

One more time for good measure — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 21:09:21 +0000

[...] based on location as well. Still, this is Qualcomm’s effort to join companies like Apple (s aapl), which pioneered touch, and Nuance ( s nuan), which has pushed speech recognition, in improving the way we navigate mobile [...]

By: Let’s test this yet again

Let’s test this yet again — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 21:07:49 +0000

By: Qualcomm’s Xiam Tells You Where It’s At

Qualcomm’s Xiam Tells You Where It’s At — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 15:31:01 +0000

[...] as Yelp can work with the platform. This is Qualcomm’s effort to join companies like Apple (s aapl), which pioneered touch, and Nuance ( s nuan), which has pushed speech recognition, in improving the way we navigate mobile [...]

By: Netbooks and the Death of x86 Computing

Netbooks and the Death of x86 Computing — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 19:51:00 +0000

[...] car. Categories will likely evolve around the type of computing jobs someone plans for the machine, input devices, mobility and power [...]

By: Forget Wii Fit: Play Full-Body Tetris Instead - GigaOM

Forget Wii Fit: Play Full-Body Tetris Instead - GigaOM — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 22:57:44 +0000

[...] less fun ways of using this technology could be expanding touchscreen interaction beyond actually touching or offering realistic simulation training. Samsung is looking at gestures as a mobile phone [...]

By: HP Keeps Pushing Touch - GigaOM

HP Keeps Pushing Touch - GigaOM — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 19:00:08 +0000

[...] the world the futuristic Surface Table and the Touch Wall. And HP launched its second generation of touch-based personal computers earlier this summer. But the underlying touch technology for smaller devices is very different from [...]

By: Samsung Instinct is a Novelty Rather Than Novel - GigaOM

Samsung Instinct is a Novelty Rather Than Novel - GigaOM — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:20:53 +0000

[...] novelty screen, people will buy the Instinct and it will certainly follow the iPhone in bringing touch as a user interface to the [...]

By: fermata

fermata — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 17:44:54 +0000

Ha, I dated an IT geek who’d go apeshit if I touched his monitor! I’m still conditioned to keep my fingers off the screen & always jump a little if someone else puts his/her mitts on mine.

By: Tony

Tony — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 17:42:09 +0000

I've programmed industrial touch screen systems. Kind of like of light curtains - cool to look at, often sucky to use. Touchscreen data entry is a PITA (one reason I like my Centro - real buttons!).

OTOH, I think touchscreen interface, especially multi-touch, could be very useful in programs like Photoshop and 3-D (Solidworks & other MCAD, Google SketchUp, Google Earth, etc).

I would like to see a lot more User Interface innovations going on - the mouse & keyboard is great for data entry and general purpose use, but specialized UI's could be much better for specific tasks.

By: austinandrew

austinandrew — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 13:32:03 +0000

Personally, when my grocery store figures out how to get the signature block on the credit card reader to actually record my signature well, I’ll start believing there’s a future in touch screens :)

By: BloggerBen

BloggerBen — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 12:12:06 +0000

Stacey, I agree completely. For the typical desktop user touch screen would never be used and would only raise the cost of the machine.

The touch screen technology definitely has some great applications in other areas such as the media manager coffee table or digital signage. We’ve already started integrating it into our digital signage platform and hope to roll it out into kiosks soon too:

http://www.teletagg.com/

By: ronald

ronald — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 03:41:20 +0000

You got it right in pointing to appliance like application, where it works the best for now. Just think about having 20-3o appliance like applications running in different work(context) spaces. How much simpler could the interface be? You would also have to give up to think about email or calendar as an application, as used today. Today's use would just be the aggregation of contexts driven sub systems. All of this has to be created for you and your changing contexts, therefore programming has to be automated first. And I think we have nailed that, give us 6 mth. we got the math, now we need to implement it.

By: Bo Gowan

Bo Gowan — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:49:44 +0000

I don't think touch will ever be mainstream for "traditional" desktops and laptops. You mention the "film" and fingerprints, which drive me crazy on my LCD HDTV (kids). But another consideration is the "reach" needed to use a touch screen.

As big 20+ inch HD displays become more common, who wants to sit 18" away from the screen so you can easily touch it? Just look at the picture in the post, and how close the girl is to the screen. Imagine doing that for 8 hours straight for your day job. I'd rather sit 3+ feet away and use my wireless mouse and keyboard.

Touch screens are sure to invade individual gadgets as you say, and may become a feature on many monitors, but I can't imagine it being a permanent replacement for my trusty wireless mouse.

By: Joey Tyson

Joey Tyson — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 01:39:51 +0000

I wonder if this is a paradigm we'll get used to, though. As a teenager, I was given a Windows CE "palmtop" before I bought my own laptop. When I finally did get a laptop, I can't tell you how many times I'd tap the corner of the screen and wonder for a second why the Start menu didn't pop up. I didn't realize how much I used the touch screen until it was gone.

I've found that even slight increases in the speed of a task add up (e.g. Opera's "Paste and Go" for the address bar), and directly clicking something instead of first moving a cursor can become habit-forming. I'm not going to rule out a desktop touch screen quite yet.

By: Niraj

Niraj — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 00:58:23 +0000

I agree that touch doesn’t seem like a very practical (or functional) form of input for a lot of applications. I wonder why it’s seen as the big thing right now rather than voice, which has made great strides. Using voice would provide a lot more flexibility.