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Multi-touch

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Multi-touch screen

Multi-touch is a method of interacting with a computer screen or smartphone. Instead of using a mouse or stylus pen, multi-touch allows the user to interact with the device by placing two or more fingers directly onto the surface of the screen. The movement of the fingers across the screen creates gestures, which send commands to the device. The term Multi-Touch is a trademark of Apple, Inc. [1]

Multi-touch requires a touch screen (screen, overlay, table, wall, etc.) or touchpad, as well as software that recognizes multiple simultaneous touch points, as opposed to the single touchscreen (e.g. computer touchpad, ATM), which recognizes only one touch point. This effect is achieved through a variety of means, including: heat, finger pressure, high capture rate cameras, infrared light, optic capture, tuned electromagnetic induction, ultrasonic receivers, transducer microphones, laser rangefinders, and shadow capture.[2]

Many products using multi-touch interfaces exist and are being developed. Multi-touch is used on portable devices including the Apple iPhone and iPod touch and MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops, the HTC Hero, Microsoft's Zune HD, Samsung Moment, Motorola Milestone and the Palm Pre, as well as desktop products such as the Microsoft Surface and the DELL Latitude XT2.

Hobbyists have developed extremely low cost touchscreen technologies using webcams, projection of image, and software that senses touch patterns via the webcam. Multi touch screens larger than 50" are possible at costs under $100 to $400 depending on the projector & equipment used. DIY multitouch screens of extremely large size (wall sized or larger) are also quite possible and very cheaply constructed and posted in numerous places on the web.

History

Multi-touch technology dates back to 1982, when Nimish Mehta at the University of Toronto developed the first finger pressure multi-touch display.[3]

In 1983, Bell Labs at Murray Hill published a comprehensive discussion of touch-screen based interfaces. [4] In 1984 Bell Labs engineered a touch screen that could change images with more than one hand. The group at the University of Toronto stopped working on hardware and moved on to software and interfaces, expecting that they would have access to the Bell Labs work.[3]

A breakthrough occurred in 1991, when Pierre Wellner published a paper on his multi-touch “Digital Desk”, which supported multi-finger and pinching motions. [5][6]

Various companies expanded upon these inventions in the beginning of the twenty-first century. Mainstream exposure to multi-touch technology occurred in the year 2007, when Apple unveiled the iPhone and Microsoft debuted surface computing. The iPhone in particular has spawned a wave of interest in multi-touch computing, since it permits greatly increased user interaction on a small scale. More robust and customizable multi-touch and gesture-based solutions are beginning to become available, among them TrueTouch, created by Cypress Semiconductor. The following is a compilation of notable uses of multi-touch technology in recent years.

The use of multi-touch technology is expected to rapidly become common place. For example, touch screen telephones are expected to increase from 200,000 shipped in 2006, to 21 million in 2012.[7]

Low-resolution trend

As of the beginning of November 2009, there are no touch-enabled laptops with resolutions equal to or higher than (W)SXGA+ (1680x1050).

The highest-resolution touch-enabled laptops which approach WSXGA+ are the Lenovo T400S (1440x900 or (W)XGA+/(W)SXGA), and the Dell Studio 17 (1600x900; however a 1920x1050 resolution and 8-core processor version exists for the non-touchscreen model, and those options are "in the works"[8] to be added to the touch model).

As of the beginning of November 2009, all other laptops are at most (W)XGA (1366x768). There have only ever been a handful of tablet PCs with high resolution (e.g. Toshiba m200 with 1400x900, circa 2004), which are all no longer produced.

Multi-touch displays

Perceptive Pixel

Jefferson Y. Han debuting his initial multi-touch system at TED

Perceptive Pixel is a company founded by New York University consulting research scientist Jefferson Y. Han that creates wall displays and tables. The displays use infrared light emitting diodes along with an infrared camera to determine the point of contact. Han envisions large collaborative spaces that will allow multiple users to work and interact. Perceptive Pixel’s technology is currently being utilized, in the form of the Multi-Touch Collaboration Wall, by CNN and an unspecified government contractor.[9] But its 6-figure price[10] scared even the most interested medium sized businesses away.

Microsoft Surface

Microsoft Surface.
Main article: Microsoft Surface

In 2001 Steve Bathiche and Andy Wilson of Microsoft began work on an idea for an interactive table that mixes both physical and virtual worlds. Research and Development expanded rapidly in 2004, once the idea caught the attention of Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates. In 2007 Microsoft introduced Microsoft Surface, a functional multi-touch table-top computer based on a standard PC platform including an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, Windows Vista, and 2 GB of RAM.[11]

Essentially, Microsoft Surface is a computer embedded in a table with a large, flat, touch-responsive display on the top. The table uses small cameras (as opposed to finger pressure or heat) that enable it to react to the touch of any object. The unit has eight different modes that allow users to perform an array of activities,ranging from organizing pictures and videos to ordering food at a restaurant. Multiple users have the ability to work on the table at one time. The preliminary launch was on April 17, 2008, when Surface became available for customer use in AT&T stores. Although the product is not available for widespread purchase, it can possibly be bought directly from Microsoft for $13,500.[12]

DiamondTouch Table

The DiamondTouch table is a multi-touch, tabletop touchscreen with the unique[13] capability of allowing multiple people to interact simultaneously while identifying which person is touching where.[14] The technology was originally developed at Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs (MERL) in 2001[15] and later licensed to Circle Twelve Inc in 2008[16].

3M Multi-touch

3M is a company known for many innovations in the touch field, including overlays incorporated in other vendor's products. 3M provides a Multi-touch developer kit which includes a projected capacitive glass surfaced 19" monitor with stand and a software development kit which includes support for the Windows 7 operating system. The unique features at this price point are 10 finger multi-touch and 15ms touch response with full edge support and finger identification when both are touching. [17] However, as the points increase on the screen, the screen sampling rate dramatically goes down.

Tyco Electronics: Elo Touch Systems

Tyco Electronics is an electronics component manufacturer which also sells touch technology through their Elo Touch Systems division. Elo Touch Systems provides integrator components, custom solutions, kits, and fully integrated touch monitors through resellers. Elo Touch Systems provides multiple technologies for single touch screens: Acoustic Pulse Recognition (APR); IntelliTouch Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW); and CarrollTouch InfraRed (IR). For Multi-touch they have been an early integrator working on Microsoft Windows 7, initially announcing support for 2 finger multi-touch support with IntelliTouch Surface Acoustic Wave and technology built on CarrollTouch IR touch technologies, in both 19" and 22" form factors. [18].

Demand Evolution

Demand Evolution has released two multi-touch displays based on infrared vision sensing and open-source software. Its product, the LCD based Gecko, is one of the cross platform, high-resolution multitouch displays available directly for consumers. The interactive display utilizes a 30" LCD, and as opposed to the wall mount and table designs of many competitors the Gecko is designed for workstation and kiosk scenarios. Currently, such open source multi-touch units on the market are low cost, because no developer kit, business software, or OS can directly support. It is aimed only at the open-source developer community and early adopters hoping to get in early on the industry shift to multi-touch interaction.

HP TouchSmart

HP Touchsmart is an All-In-One PC introduced by computer giant Hewlett-Packard and was first released in 2007. It is HP's first "PC-In-A-Box" computer, quite similar to the iMac G3, released in 1998, although incorporating a multi-touch display. It is the first mass marketed 'touch screen' PC made commercially available. The technology behind the first generation TouchSmart, however, does not support the same class of multi-touch interaction as the previously mentioned products. Because of the nature of its optical touch sensors, the display can not effectively sense touches that fall within the same sensing beam. This shadowing problem makes the screens prohibitive for many of the multi-touch interaction scenarios that other options can support. Newer generation TouchSmart systems feature larger display sizes, up to 25.5", and improved touch technology. The improvements confine the "area of confusion" to a smaller footprint, inhibiting multi-touch by very small fingers immediately adjacent to each other.

Dell SX2210T

Dell Multi-Touch is the first monitor available from Dell that supports Multi-Touch input. It is similar to the Dell Studio One screen size and uses the same optical tracking technology. The monitor is 21.5" in size and is capable of 1920 x 1080 (Full High Definition) resolution and comes with HDMI, SVGA and DVI inputs. It requires a USB cable to be connected from the monitor to the computer for the touch input to be received by the computer. It also has an inbuilt webcam and microphone. [19]

Multi-touch pads

Wacom Bamboo

Wacom updated their Bamboo tablets with a new line that feature touch input. The line includes five tablets; Bamboo (Pen & Touch), Bamboo Pen, Bamboo Touch, Bamboo Fun and Bamboo Craft. The Pen & Touch, Fun and Craft all feature pen input along with the new touch input, allowing one to use hand gestures and finger taps to operate their computer, while the Bamboo Pen and the Bamboo Touch only have pen and touch capabilities respectively. It does its own guesture recognition so you see only one touch point on the screen and it doesn't support native Windows 7 multitouch. So for instance you can't use it to draw with several brushes at once in Windows Paint or to play chords on an on-screen piano. See wacom forum discussion of multitouch capabilities.

Fingerworks

In 1999, Fingerworks, a Newark-based company run by University of Delaware academics John Elias and Wayne Westerman, produced a line of multi-touch products including the iGesture Pad and the TouchStream keyboard.[3] Westerman published a dissertation in 1999 on the subject. In 2005, after years of maintaining a niche line of keyboards and touchpads, Fingerworks was acquired by Apple Inc.

Apple products

In 2005, Apple acquired FingerWorks. In 2007 they introduced the iPhone, marking the first time multi-touch technology was used on a phone. The iPhone includes such components as a web browser, music player, video player, and a cell phone without the use of a hard keypad or stylus.

Following the release of the iPhone, Apple also expanded its use of multi-touch computing with the new iPod Touch, as well as the new MacBook Air. As of 2009, Multi-touch can be found on the MacBook, MacBook Air , MacBook Pro and Magic Mouse.

The latest revisions of Apple's polycarbonate unibody MacBook and MacBook Pro features a full glass multi-touch trackpad (whilst the MacBook Air features a standard multi-touch trackpad). These enable various gestures such as scrolling, "swiping" between pages or pictures as well as rotating pictures, and launching Exposé.[20]

CUBIT and TouchKit

Addie Wagenknecht and Stefan Hechenberger of Nortd studio, based in New York and Vienna, created a scaled-down open-source version of Surface, called CUBIT and a screen based kit called TouchKit. According to the website of Technology Review magazine, "By sharing the Cubit's hardware schematics and software source code, the engineers are significantly reducing the cost of owning a multitouch table. But they're also fostering innovation by giving engineers an open platform on which to develop novel multitouch applications--something that they've previously lacked. It will cost anywhere between $1,000 to $1,580 depending on hardware used." [21]

Asus EEE PC

Asus has included a multi-touch touchpad in the 900 and 1000 series of their Eee PC netbooks, an Elantech Smart-Pad. Depending on the installed drivers, it can be used for scrolling, 3 button operation, dragging and resizing and rotating pictures.

Dell Inspiron Mini

Dell has also included a multi-touch touchpad in the Dell Inspiron Mini Series. Provided with a driver from Elantech, it can be used for scrolling, 3 button operation, dragging, resizing, rotating pictures and system shortcuts as Start Menu and Explorer (on Windows), browser back and forward, minimizing and maximizing windows, window switching, desktop showing and hiding, and running custom commands. by sumit sahu but i dont agry with this bakwas.

Sharp Mebius

In April 2009, Sharp unveiled the upcoming first laptop with an optical-sensor LCD pad. The optical-sensor LCD technology combines LCD and CCD elements within its pixels and can detect fingers and objects such as a stylus, and is claimed to be able to scan a business card placed on top of the screen. Further improvements to this function are expected to enable fingerprint authentication in the future[22][23]. There is no information on when this laptop will be released.

Notebooks and tablets

Acer Touch

Acer multi-touch technology includes scroll, rotate, zoom and flick. [24] This tecnology is included in the Acer Aspire 5738PG.[25]

HP Touchsmart TX2

Released in December 2008, the Touchsmart tx2 was touted as the first consumer notebook and tablet PC with on-screen multi-touch control. The tx2 features multi-touch technology by N-trig.[26], which also allows use of a stylus.

Dell Latitude XT/XT2

In July 2008, Dell released multi-touch touch-screen drivers for the Latitude XT Tablet, claiming the "industry’s first convertible tablet with multi-touch capabilities."[27] Dell has partnered with multi-touch technology startup N-trig to enable multi-touch capabilities for its tablet. [28]

There have been numerous reports of serious problems with the XT multi-touch drivers or hardware interface, which, as of October 2008, remain unresolved by Dell.[29] The major issue is centered around the multi-touch drivers failing when the computer is booted when USB devices are connected at boot, or when certain internal media drives are present. Often, but not always, the issue is resolved if the computer is booted without the USB devices and they are connected after boot.[30] A similar, but not identical, issue may also be caused by interfering software, such as the iTunes helper.[31] Issue resolution is complicated by the possible failure of the driver install program to function in the presence of damaged drivers, requiring manual removal of related files and registry keys..[32] With the introduction of Windows 7 which offers native multi-touch support, preliminary tests have show that many of these issues with the XT have been solved, together with a much improved N-Trig Win 7 driver.

Dell Studio 17

A multi-touch LCD screen is available as an option for the Dell Studio 17 notebook. It uses N-trig technology[33].

Lenovo Tablets (x200)

Currently, Lenovo's X200 tablet supports multitouch.[34] It is capable of detecting multi-finger gestures, or single pen gestures.

Lenovo Tablets (x400)

The upcoming new version of Lenovo's ThinkPad T400s will feature multi-touch by N-Trig[35].

Software

iPhone OS

iPhone OS support multi-touch. This extends from the windowing environment, through to Safari and other software.

Linux

Most Linux distributions support multi-touch in their recent versions, such as Ubuntu ( since version 7.10), Google's Android, Palm's webOS and Xandros.

Windows 7

File:Windows 7 Touch Photos Application.jpg
A multi-touch photos application is demonstrated in a pre-release version of Windows 7.

Windows 7 is the first version of Windows to support multi-touch without the addition of third party add-ons.[36] The operating system is known to have a multi-touch mapping application, photo viewing program, and incorporation in Internet Explorer 8. In January 2009, Microsoft joined with other investors who invested twenty-four million dollars in N-Trig Ltd., which plans to make computer hardware that takes advantage of Windows 7's multi-touch support.[37]

Frameworks

Multi-touch for Java (MT4j)

MT4j [38] is an open source multi-touch application development platform which is designed for rapid development of graphically rich multi-touch applications based on the Java programming language. It runs on common PC hardware and operating systems (Windows, Linux). Multi-touch hardware technology is abstracted via TUIO Protocol. MT4j provides a component model. Many multi-touch user interface components are already included. There is a support for common input formats (e.g. svg, 3ds, obj, various image formats) and OpenGL is used to provide high performance 2D and 3D graphics rendering.

PyMT

PyMT [39] is a python module using OpenGL for developing multi-touch enabled media rich applications. Currently the aim is to allow for quick and easy interaction design and rapid prototype development. PyMT support natively Windows WM_TOUCH/PEN, MacOSX multitouchpad, Wiimote, SMK, Tuio, and lot of widgets are available by default: keyboard, video, scatter, audio, layouts, cache...).

Pop culture has also portrayed potential uses of multi-touch technology in the future. The 2002 science-fiction film Minority Report showed different Multi-touch features like enlarging and moving objects around. The television series CSI: Miami introduced both surface and wall displays similar to Microsoft Surface in its sixth season. Another form of a multi-touch computer was seen in the motion picture starring Ewan McGregor The Island, where the professor played by Sean Bean has a multi-touch desktop to organize files, which was based on an early version of Microsoft Surface[10]. This technology can also be seen in the James Bond film Quantum of Solace. In a parodic episode of the popular TV series The Simpsons, when Lisa Simpson travels to the underwater headquarters of Mapple to visit Steve Mobs, the erstwhile pretender to the throne of Apple is shown to be performing multiple multi-touch hand gestures on a large touch wall.

A device similar to the Surface was seen in the 1982 movie Tron. It took up an executive's entire desk and was used to communicate with the Master Control computer.

The interface used to control the alien ship in the movie District 9 features such similar technology. [40]

See also

References

  1. ^ Apple Trademark List[1]
  2. ^ Pennock, Jacob, Tabrizi, M.H.N, 2008, A Survey of Input Sensing and Processing Techniques for Multi-Touch Systems, CDES'08
  3. ^ a b c Buxton, Bill. 2008. Multi-Touch Systems that I Have Known and Loved. http://www.billbuxton.com/multitouchOverview.html (accessed March 16, 2008).
  4. ^ Nakatani, L. H., John A Rohrlich (1983). "Soft Machines: A Philosophy of User-Computer Interface Design". Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI’83): 12–15. Retrieved 2009-01-28.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  5. ^ Wellner, Pierre. 1991. The Digital Desk. YouTube video
  6. ^ Pierre Wellner's papers via DBLP
  7. ^ Wong, May. 2008. Touch-screen phones poised for growth http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2007-06-21-1895245927_x.htm (Accessed April 2008).
  8. ^ http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/direct2dell/archive/2009/11/20/multi-touch-comes-to-dell-s-studio-17.aspx
  9. ^ Green, Kate. 2007. Touch Screens for Many Fingers. [2] (accessed March 16, 2008).
  10. ^ Can't Touch This [3](accessed July 11, 2009)
  11. ^ Reimer, Jeremy. 2007. A day on the Surface: a hands-on look at Microsoft’s new computing platform. http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/surface.ars (accessed March 16, 2008).
  12. ^ Microsoft Surface price tag steeper than anticipated [4] (accessed July 11, 2009)
  13. ^ Blough, K., "All Together Now", InformationWeek, 4 March 2002
  14. ^ Sandhana, L., "Interactive display system knows users by touch", New Scientist, 25 May 2006
  15. ^ Dietz, P. (2001). "DiamondTouch: A Multi-User Touch Technology". Proceedings of the 14th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology. UIST: Orlando, FL. Vol. f. pp. 219–226. {{cite conference}}: External link in |conferenceurl= (help); Unknown parameter |booktitle= ignored (|book-title= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |conferenceurl= ignored (|conference-url= suggested) (help)
  16. ^ Circle Twelve press release BusinessWire, 12 June 2008
  17. ^ 3M™ Multi-touch Developer Kit [5] (accessed August 22, 2009)
  18. ^ Tyco Electronics Announces New Elo TouchSystems Touch Technologies at SID[6] (accessed August 22, 2009)
  19. ^ DellTM SX2210T 21.5"W Multi-Touch Monitor with Webcam[7]
  20. ^ Apple debuts new 15" MacBook Pro
  21. ^ Open-Source, Multitouch Display http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/20703/?nlid=1044&a=f (accessed March 16, 2008).
  22. ^ http://www.itworld.com/hardware/66731/sharp-debuts-laptop-optical-sensor-lcd-pad
  23. ^ http://www.japancorp.net/Article.Asp?Art_ID=15247
  24. ^ http://us.acer.com/showrooms/touch/touchscreen.html
  25. ^ http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/slideshow/318267/acer-launches-new-touch-screen-monitor-notebooks/
  26. ^ [8]
  27. ^ Dell Propels Laptop Innovation With First Multi-Touch Convertible Tablet, Larger Solid State Drive
  28. ^ Exclusive: Hands-On with Dell’s XT Tablet Now with Multi-Touch
  29. ^ Tablet Touchscreen Died : Latitude XT : NtrigApplet Can't connect to driver
  30. ^ Can't connect to driver" How common is the issue?
  31. ^ How Many N-trig Driver Problems Are There? 2,3,??
  32. ^ WARNING: Latititude XT N-Trig software uninstall leaves Digitizer unusable
  33. ^ http://www.n-trig.com/Content.aspx?Page=PressReleases&PressReleaseId=574
  34. ^ [9]
  35. ^ http://www.n-trig.com/Content.aspx?Page=PressReleases&PressReleaseId=566
  36. ^ Windows ista Team Blog. "Microsoft demonstrates Multi-touch". MSDN Blogs. Retrieved 2008-05-28.
  37. ^ Kenneth Pennington. "Microsoft Invests Big in Multi-Touch". Windows 7 Info. Retrieved 2009-01-12.
  38. ^ Multi-touch for Java (MT4j) software development platform Website http://www.MT4j.org (accessed Oct. 14, 2009).
  39. ^ A Python Multi-Touch library [http://pymt.txzone.net http://pymt.txzone.net)
  40. ^ District 9 at IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1136608/
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