USB Multi-Touch Smart Pad
We’ve seen the power of multi-touch displays thanks to the iPhone and iPod touch, and Brando wants to get a piece of the action as well with their new USB Multi-Touch Smart Pad. Apart from being such a device, it also doubles up as a numeric keypad for those budding accountants. It supports up to three fingers where multi-touch is concerned, and supports the Windows operating system. Expect to fork out $40 for the USB Multi-Touch Smart Pad.
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HTC Touch HD
HTC Touch HD: multi-touched by the hand of Ballmer?
Pictures and video of a mysterious leaked handset running HTC’s TouchFlo 3D OS suggests Windows Mobile 6.5 will embrace multi-touch.
If Windows Mobile 6.5 does support multi-touch, it’ll put it back in the game against the iPhone and finger-friendly Android phones like the HTC Hero.
This news reaches us before any WinMo 6.5 screen has been repeatedly jabbed in anger as the initial launch isn’t due until October 1.
It had seemed that Microsoft were waiting for late 2010, and the scheduled release of the alleged back to the drawing-board re-write that will be Windows Mobile 7.
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What if you could “touch” and poke your Facebook friends? In the future, this may be possible.
Star Trek’s Holodeck has just became a little closer to reality with news researchers from the University of Tokyo have developed a technique that allows 3D holograms to be “touched”. By blending a holographic display, a couple of Nintendo Wiimotes and an ultrasound phenomenon called acoustic radiation pressure, the researchers were able to create the Airborne Ultrasound Tactile Display. A system that can give the feeling of holographic raindrops hitting an outstretched hand or a virtual creature running across a palm.
The Airborne Ultrasound Tactile Display consists of three elements.
* Seeing: The Provision holographic display, which produces floating images from an LCD screen using a concave mirror. These projected images appear to float around 30 cm away from the display surface.
* Tracking: The hand-tracking technology, which makes use of the infrared camera found in the Nintendo Wiimote and a retroreflective marker placed on the tip of the user’s middle finger. Although camera-based and marker-less hand-tracking technologies are easy to come by these days, the researchers chose a Wiimote-based system for simplicities sake. Infrared LEDs illuminate the marker and two Wiimotes sense the 3D position of the finger, thereby allowing the user to handle to floating virtual image with their hands.
* Feeling: Finally the Airborne Ultrasound Tactile Display provides tactile sensation onto the user’s hand. This is accomplished using acoustic radiation pressure, which allows force to be generated at the focal point of the ultrasound emitted from the tactile display. When the tactile display radiates the ultrasound the users can feel tactile sensation on their bare hands in free space with no direct contact. The current version prototype consists of 324 ultrasound transducers with individually controlled phase delays and amplitudes to allow one focal point to be generated and moved three-dimensionally.
The prototype in the video below shows a user feeling a raindrop hit their palm and feeling a small virtual creature running across their palm. Since the system doesn’t require the use of a physical object within the workspace, the appearance of the holographic images isn’t diluted.
The researchers from the University of Tokyo believe the technology will find applications in video games, 3D Computer Aided Designs, amongst other uses.
Source: PhysOrg.
Subscribe to the Multi Touch Newsletter.Schematic’s giant interactive outdoor display facilitates wayfinding and social networking at the festival.
At Cannes this year, delegates will literally be the first to get their hands on a new kind of interactive out-of-home installation. The multi-touch wall from Schematic, a WPP digital company, is a 12-foot by 5-foot display that provides a visual interface for attendees to interact with the festival schedule, 3D venue maps and information on local attractions using only their hands. With the touchwall’s social networking capabilities, attendees can also set up meetings and swap contact details via email.
Multiple attendees can interact with the wall at once. To identify themselves, attendees need only to touch their festival badges to the screen—each badge is embedded with a radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag.
Check back later this week for more on user interface design and interactive marketing shop Schematic and the wall’s potential for advertisers.
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Microsoft’s top Windows business executive said Monday that for all his excitement about Windows 7, he doubts the release of the operating system will lead to a significant spike in PC sales.
“History would tell us that generally as you ship a Windows release into the market…the bump is very modest,” Microsoft senior vice president Bill Veghte said in a “fireside chat” at the UBS Global Technology and Services Conference. “You will see a little bit, but it is modest.”
Veghte announced last week that Microsoft plans to ship Windows 7 on Oct. 22. The company will also have a program in the coming weeks through which those who buy a new PC with Windows Vista will get a free or low-cost upgrade to Windows 7. A leaked memo from Best Buy suggests that the program will kick off at the end of this month.
On the business side, Veghte said that there is “very good enthusiasm around Windows 7,” but that will not be the biggest factor in the decision by corporations about when to upgrade their computers.
“It will get drowned by the macroeconomic environment,” he said in the speech, which was Webcast on Microsoft’s investor Web site. “As the macro environment comes back, people will have to buy new PCs. People aren’t using PCs any less.”
Veghte was pressed on whether Windows 7 will help Microsoft see improvement in the average selling price of Windows, which has taken a big hit because of the rise of Netbooks, a low-cost notebook PC variant.
“It’s pretty hard to tell,” Veghte said. “I think in this economic environment it is very hard to see us at the mix we had (during Windows XP and the beginning of Windows Vista). As we come out of the economic downturn it’s a very interesting question.”
Veghte was also asked about Microsoft’s recent cost-cutting effort and said it is something the company hasn’t done in the 19 years he’s been there. He said every expense has been questioned as to whether it is essential.
“It has been line by line,” Veghte said. “As a culture we’ve got to go through and really make the hard trade-offs. I think it’s a wonderful thing for the company, for the culture.”
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The last MacBook standing.
Apple’s lowest-end laptop occupies a special place in the Mac spectrum. As of WWDC 2009, it’s the last MacBook standing in the lineup–all the other Apple notebooks are now MacBook Pros. The MacBook (we can call it “the” MacBook, now) also is the last to retain the polycarbonate white plastic glossy casing that once defined a whole line of machines.
While the MacBook’s more pedestrian appearance may not catch the eye as much as the unibody aluminum MacBook Pros, don’t be fooled by its throwback looks–inside, Apple’s done a good job of keeping the components on par with its more expensive brothers. In fact, the white MacBook has very comparable specs to the lowest-end 13-inch MacBook Pro. Its 2.13 GHz Core 2 Duo processor is close to the MacBook Pro’s standard 2.26 GHz one, and the Nvidia 9400M graphics processor is the same one that’s in the MacBook unibody 13-inchers, so the gaming and media capabilities are comparable.
Depending on your specific needs, for $999, you’re getting a real bargain with the last MacBook. You can either approach this as “for $200 more I can get a MacBook Pro,” or “I can get something nearly as good as a MacBook Pro and save $200.” The latter perspective, however, requires you to be willing to skip some of the Pro-level features.
The MacBook comes with two USB 2.0 ports, a mini-DVI port, a FireWire 400 port, and both a headphone and mic jack. The 160GB hard drive can be upgraded to a maximum of 500GB when ordering, a first for a MacBook. The polycarbonate body, as always, feels sturdy and well built, if thicker than the aluminum versions, and the pleasingly minimalist glossy plastic exterior and matte white interior might be more prone to picking up scratches and staining.
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The Asus Eee PC T91, which we fondled fondly at CES, has a few new tricks up its sleeve in the multitouch and Windows 7 department, but sadly these features won’t make it in time for launch this month.
Previously, we knew about the netbook’s touchscreen and hefty £449 ($670) price tag (for an Atom-based netbook, anyway), but the multitouch screen and Windows 7, both demoed in the video, were kind of a revelation.
Apple has been awarded a number of new patents from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office this week. Two of the patents give Apple a firmer hold on its multitouch and touchpad surface technologies and the iPhone’s case design.
An important patent for a touchpad surface titled Force imaging input device and system covers the multitouch trackpad in Apple’s more recent notebook computers and–to some degree–the iPhone touch screen.
The abstract from the patent describes a system with multiple layers comprised of two sets of drive traces, one layer of sensing traces, and a spring membrane. The layers are arranged over a base and have an outer layer such as plastic or glass that gives the entire assembly a pleasing outward appearance and provides an interactive surface with the outside world.
(Credit: U.S. Patent Office)
The invention is credited to Steven Hotelling and Brian Huppi, and could serve as a defense for Apple against any multitouch copycat devices.
The second patent, titled Electronic device, covers the iPhone’s case design, and shows how the iPhone is constructed and where the ports are placed on the top and bottom of the phone. Additionally, the patent indicates location and placement of the speakers, switches, buttons, and camera.
(Credit: U.S. Patent Office)
The invention is credited to a long list of people. Notable celebs on the list include Apple’s lead designer, Jonathan Ive, and the company’s CEO, Steve Jobs. This patent could serve to protect the iPhone from look-a-like competitors.
Subscribe to the Multi Touch Newsletter.Video demo of the HP TouchSmart TX2 tablet PC running Windows 7 RC 64-bit with multi-touch features.
N-trig DuoSense™ Multi-Touch Beta Package (2.59) for Windows 7 Release Candidate
The DuoSenseTM multi-touch package for Windows 7 Release Candidate enables ISVs and developers to experience the Hands-onTM effect, and allows software applications to be developed with integral multi-touch capabilities.
In this package, more than two fingers can be used simultaneously as input devices.
This package supports Windows 7 protocol only. In Windows 7, multi-touch gesture-recognition is identified by the operating system.
If you are a developer and have DuoSense technology enabled and the Windows 7 RC (build 7100) version installed on either your Dell Latitude XT, your Latitude XT2 or your HP TouchSmart tx2, you can download and run the multi-touch package.
What is multi-touch?
Multi-touch gives the user the ability to use their hands to manipulate data and objects directly on the computer screen, enabling them to fully experience the Hands-on computingTM approach. DuoSense’s multi-touch technology provides a natural user interface, revolutionizing personal and professional computing and providing a better human interface.
Important Notes
Before downloading this package you must ensure that you read the N-trig DuoSense™ Multi-Touch Package for Windows 7 Release Candidate Release Notes for your computer.
For more information about the Dell Latitude XT, or Latitude XT2 please contact your Dell representative.
For more information about the HP TouchSmart tx2, please contact your HP representative.
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Saturday, May 09, 2009 – 11:43 AM EDT
“Apple has seeded developers with a new version of Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard),” Arnold Kim reports for MacRumors.
“The build (10A354) adds one particularly interesting new feature to Apple’s Mac operating system: Chinese handwriting recognition specifically for multi-touch capable machines,” Kim reports.
“This could open the door to more novel uses for Apple’s multi-touch trackpads or even suggest a more robust full-screen multi-touch screen as has been rumored,” Kim reports.
More in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: Multi-Touch™ is a trademark of Apple Inc.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "James W." for the heads up.]
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