MULTI TOUCH TECHNOLOGY: AMAZING INVENTIONS

Mar 13 • General • 2325 Views • 3 Comments on MULTI TOUCH TECHNOLOGY: AMAZING INVENTIONS

CAPACITIVE MULTI SENSING

First of all let us discuss some of the biological stuff. Do you know a human body can act like a capacitor! I am sure you don’t and even never imagined of such thing. By the way yes it can. This property of human body is called body capacitance.  But it can act only when it is insulated.

For example have you seen any child making a guy sit on a plastic chair and beating the back of the chair with a cloth. Well if you have not seen let me tell you about it. It is a sort of game, though very less famous among children, in which one child sits on a plastic chair with none of the body part touching the ground and another child beats the back of the chair with any cloth. After beating for some time when anybody tries to touch the child sitting on the chair, then he/she trying to touch feels a shock from the body of the child sitting on the chair. This proves that a human body can store charge which gets generated due to friction on beating the chair. If you feel you can try this at home, it is absolutely safe.

Ok, if you are still not clear with it, let me give you another example. In winter season, everybody wears woollen clothes. Have you ever noticed that if you are sitting on a chair or bed without any of you body part touching the ground, and you are undressing your woollen cloth, some spark like sound, though very low comes. Not only that you may even sometimes have noticed that light sparks also if the light is off. This happens due to your body gets rubbed with your woollen cloth and generates charge in your body which in turns attracts the woollen cloth towards itself. So as you open it, i.e., pull the woollen cloth away from the body, light sparks with sound. This also proves that body stores charge. If you have not noticed yet, try to notice in the coming winter.

Now for one question you may be scratching your head very badly that, the topic is related to Multi Touch Technology, but why am I discussing all these biological stuffs! Right? Well it is so because this biological stuff is the base of a new invention which I am going to discuss.

A team of researchers at Disney Research collaborated with Carnegie Mellon University and came up with a new technology. The technique used here is known as novel swept frequency capacitive sensing technique which can track many different signal frequencies simultaneously. Using the property of body capacitance mentioned above, this technology can tell which part of the body the person is using, whether it is the elbow or one finger, more than one, etc. And not only that, it can even tell if the person’s hand is submerged in water.

INFINITE TOUCH INPUTS

This is another new invention in which few researchers from New York University came up with an idea to create flexible multi touch screen that react to different objects, fingers and hands. Also in theory it can offer infinite simultaneous touch inputs but unlike others it consumes very less power and it is quite inexpensive. And the most interesting thing about it is that the touch interface is just 0.25mm thick. The technology used here is called interpolating force-sensitive resistance technology.

AMAZING MICROSCOPE

Okay now everybody in their student life has used microscope at least once. Do you still remember it? Well if yes then you will be interested to know that now digital microscope is developed with the help of multi touch technology. Yes, a group of scientist from Institute of Molecular Medicine Finland along with Finnish company Multitouch Ltd. developed it as a touch and gesture controlled microscope. It is a 46 inch multi touch display along with a scanner that digitises the thing put under it. This interface accepts all types of touch as input. Talking about the microscope, it can zoom in and zoom out an object to 1000x magnification whose memory needed for storage may go upto 200GB. Great, no!

FOOT INTERACTIVE TOUCH SURFACE

Till now you have heard about the touch interfaces which can respond to any type of touch with the hand or stylus. But have you heard anything about the technology with which you can interact with your foot. I hope no. Well a group of people headed by human computer interaction professor, [ This type of designation also exists! I neither knew nor had any idea about it at all. 😛 ], Patrick Baudisch created a multi touch floor display thus opening the door to a huge number of possibilities for this technology. This device has a high resolution multi touch built into the back projected floors which allows its users to interact using their feet with high precision. This is so because it can detect pressures and identify users based on the soles of their shoes. Amazing! Right?

AWSOME COFFEE TABLE

Now discussing about the next invention of the multi touch technology, I can definitely say one thing that this invention will be in wide use. Do you want to why! Well the next invention is a coffee table which has a built in multi touch display. Now you can order you favourite coffee sitting in your place itself without being tensed that why the waiter or waitress is not coming to attend to your orders. This one is recently unveiled by the company named Digital Touch. It is having a 26 inch Liquid Crystal Display along with an orientation switch a person can view the display content sitting at any position of the table. Not only that, you can even interact with other tables. And the most important thing is that if you are getting bored, you can play music, video games, etc. Now will you still be asking why I said so before, that this will be widely in use!

MULTI TOUCH TABLE TOP

In the present world, we know that Microsoft is known as the software giant. Microsoft has brought a technology called the “Manual Deskterity” that allows finger touch and pen touch simultaneously to give more realistic experience with the table top.

It is like a table on which you can work freely – you can move the virtual pages on the table with your finger. Also you can make notes on virtual paper using your pen! Here some applications also exists in which you need to use the combination of both.

MULTI TOUCH ANYWHERE

Now this is something very new and the most interesting, atleast according to me. Well this is an invention by which you can make any surface a multi touch interface. Unbelievable, right! But don’t forget, this technology works on the principle of “Touching is Believing”. So by the way this is amazingly true. Now you can convert almost any surface to a multi touch surface with the help of it. It is an ultra thin polymer film, almost like a skin, having a grid of nanowires enclosed in it. So it can detect not only touch, but even air movements.

MULTI TOUCH MOUSE

Now this is again one of the finest inventions of this technology brought to you by Apple. With the multi touch mouse, you can interact with the computer without even physically moving the mouse. This means you can simply move your fingers over the mouse surface according to your need and the result will be displayed on the monitor. Though much details about it is still not unveiled.

Want to know about Multi-Touch Technology?

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