3-metre, 65-finger and blow touchscreen debuts

Portuguese company is hoping to transform our landscape and environment into one big touchscreen if they have their way, with a new technology debuting in Amsterdam.

Called projective capacitive touchscreen technology, the tech has the ability to turn virtually any surface into a touchscreen device for users to interact with.

"Our technology only captures touch, you can use it anywhere", Miguel Fonseca, chief business officer tells Pocket-lint in a one-to-one interview.

The technology is actually a thinner-than-paper polymer film that when applied to glass, plastic or wood turns the surface interactive.

The film, which features a grid of nanowires embedded into it, is able to monitor when and where it is touched and relay those co-ordinates to a controller, which in turn is read by software - making the user believe they have interacted with the specific point in question on the screen.

"You touch, it measures the disturbance, it will see where you are touching", comments Fonseca, explaining how the technology works.

The film can actually measure lots of disturbances it turns out, with current support for 16-finger multitouch on a 50-inch screen and future support up to 65 fingers at any one time coming in future developments. Furthermore the film can also measure airflow.

"Users could blow on the screen to interact with the interface", says Fonseca before going on to give an example. "Chances are when you use a tablet PC you'll have it on your lap or near your face. You could blow on it to close the monitor, or blow out a candle in a game".

Asked why regular wind wouldn't be an issue, Fonseca tells us that it's all about energy, something that wind doesn't have in this application and therefore not making it an issue.

"We measure the energy displacement on the glass".

Where it gets even more complicated is that users don't even have to touch the film for the technology to work. In fact the film can be on the other side of any surface as long as that surface isn't thicker than 15mm.

"You can turn a table into a multitouch table", boasts Fonseca. "Or the inside of a shop window".

It's where the technology gets its name, working like an iPhone for example, the capacitive screen projects through the material turning the surface into what appears to be a touchscreen surface for you to interact with.

"All of a sudden, everything could become touch enabled", Fonseca tells us.

The film, which is currently available in sizes from 7 inches (18cm) diagonal to a whopping 3m in diagonal, means information points, shop windows, and of course tablet computers like the newly announced Apple iPad are all ripe for the touching.

Although a variant of the technology has been around since 2006 and already used by companies such as Vodafone in the UK and even Cirque Du Soleil, it is the first time the company has moved to support multitouch technology rather than single finger input.

The previous version of the technology only supported single finger input

Like Synaptics, who offers a 10-finger multitouch screen up to 11 inches, games and education are at the forefront of the thinking as to where the technology will and can be used.

Hoping to offer more than the Synaptic's offering, the Displax screen can be placed over curved surfaces, suggesting touchscreen globes with a Google earth software interface underneath could be making their way to a museum or classroom near you in the not too distant future.

"We expect it [the technology] to be in the high street by the end of the year", says Fonseca confidently when asked how "pie in the sky" this technology currently is.

While the main push is to be museums, high street stores and possibly military HQs, Fonseca is clearly excited by Internet tablet PCs suddenly hitting the scene. They are already working with a number of manufacturers to bring this technology to market.

Who? Fonseca won't say, however we did get a chuckle from him when we mentioned mobile phone maker HTC, suggesting the manufacturer famed with the creation of some of the best Android handsets on the market, is working on a tablet device. The rumours and denials are already there in equal measure, however on the record, Fonseca can only say that they are working with "very intelligent manufacturers".

Picture frame +++++++

Depending on the price and amount of available applications this could potentially be a great device. I already find myself in a situation that I don't do things (like look up some info because the laptop is on my desk on the 1st floor while I'm on the ground floor). So if this has some nice applications (besides all that come with the device) like:

• Recipes for in the kitchen
• server application so you can use the webcams as security devices
• Remote screen/desktop so I can manage my mediacenter form this (and not having to turn on the big screen to find some music)

But judge for yourself

If having an English-language site means that the Korean manufacturer Mintpass will be selling some of its products to the U.S., Enlgand, Canada, Australia, etc. then by all means we must expect the U.S., Europe launch of the Mintpad soon. The Mintpass Mintpad is a would-be revolutionary 3-inch touchscreen PMP that serves as a note-taking and multimedia device. Though the 400MHz processor/ 128MB of RAM is good enough for the old iPhone, the 4GB storage may be a little lacking. Suggested price in Korean is just under $160 but it should be cheaper once it gets to foreign shores. Click the links below to know more.

[mintpass via dapreview]

Whiteboard, smartboard and beyond the obvious enabling new learning and working styles

I was triggered to blog about this because I read a post from Alex Vermeule, a former Colleague at Microsoft where he pointed at the Free Internet Whiteboard

So far most digital whiteboards do come with some proprietary software and are pretty limited in terms of:

• Sharing (locally and accross the internet)
• Manageability
• Collaboration
• Useability

So there are easier solutions, specially now the multitouch overlays are becoming mainstream and thus affordable. Instead of having a traditional setup with a whiteboard and a projector (so you are allways standing in the beam, that's why I dislike them most I guess) you can also take a 50 or perhaps even 60 inch LCD panel with touch (multi or single, however multi would increase the useability) overlay. If this is not big enough you can even take a full wall with a touch panel (this is expensive and custom made) on a rear projection wall (takes some space). That gives the ultimate flexibility

The great thing of taking a LCD panel is resolution per euro (so you can have a relative cheap HD panel) and the backlit so you never stand in the beam again. Also the system can be managed easily when using it as a monitor from a pc (which you need anyway)

Then just use onenote as your whiteboard tool. This is easy to use and extremely flexible. You get:

• Handwriting recognition
• Share accross the internet or local network via mail
• Direct sharing with the participants so anyone can write at the same time
• Easy search through all notes taken and tagging items
• Copy/past functionality as in all other windows apps
• Easy to share with other classrooms as well
• Use of templates
• Use of multiple notebooks
• Integrated audio/video recording (for recording sesions) with the option to search and listen/view back specific parts

This will provide you with much more flexibility and in general for lower costs. Again if you use a HD panel with a multitouch overlay you can have some nice multitouch applications available but even more important all other applications will run in HD as well (like video) and you can use it for regular presentations made in eg powerpoint of videoconferencing

Also since it can be shared for live collaboration within a meeting/class room but also over the internet if fits much better in the new world of work and in new classroom concepts, distance learning etc (and students can easily add their own notes to the shared notebook as well as view/listen back recorded classroom sessions)

One alternative solution (low-end and free) is

Chris Live Tech Support Video Help Add to iTunes

This is not a mature product and I would not reccomend this in classroom sessions or business meetings however there are still some nice areas of use (like an interactive wall accross different facilities within a company so people can express thmeselves in a nice way)

What you give up compared to most traditional systems (like the ones from smart technologies)

1. Automatic discovery which pencil you take (the color) or the cleaner
2. ..................?

So how bad is this. Perhaps bad for a few old fashioned teachers reluctant to change but if you sometimes want to use your finger to write, or just have a simple pencil (stylus) you can just select the role on the screen with software. So no need for different pencils for different roles, Just one and assign any role you like to this (this gives much more flexibility since there are many more roles than the standard predefined from a smartboard)

What do you gain

Well this list is much longer

• Flexibility (you can easily use it for much more)
• Scaleability
• Collaboration options
• Sharing options
• Manageability
• More cost effective

The great thing is at last you see for example smart already offering an LCD based solution however there are still too many limitations in my opinion compared to other systems

Minority report screen ready to turn into product

Ok we all know intel is creating solutions, not products. But still they developed a pretty cool product (just to show he power of the their platform but it can be a great reference model)



So now hope somebody goes for this and start producing the thing. It will not be cheap but who cares. Everything to get the economy back in shape. Even if we have to spent some euros

Oh............and let's hope it's multiutouch as well:) or am I asking too much now

how dead is the netbook, this one looks smart

Ok I just declared the netbook dead but now I have seen this device rnnig Linux (or Android or WinCE if you like, but have to install it yourself). The article below is shameless copied from gizmodo since they seem to be the only one having a test. The clever part of this device is the way you can transform it from a laptop into a tablet with a touch interface and the way it handles USB. The USB slots are made in such a way you can have your dongles there permanently. For some detailed info besides the test below just go yo http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/

First Hands On: Touch Book Is a Part-Netbook, Part-Tablet
By Adrian Covert,

The Always Innovating Touch Book does something I've never seen from a netbook: it has a fully detachable keyboard dock and transforms from a standard looking 8.9-inch netbook, to a stand-alone tablet.

Spearheaded by Gregoire Gentil, the man behind the Zonbu Desktop and Laptop, the Touch Book is his latest project, and a promising one at that. Gentil says the Touch Book's hardware and software are fully open source and ready for modifications. While the device will come preloaded with a custom Touch Book OS, Gentil says this machine is capable of running mobile operating systems such as Android or Windows CE.

The hardware I saw wasn't quite complete—the software was demoed on a prototype, and the final hardware above were just empty shells to give an idea of the design—so I cant comment too much on how well the end product performs, but I saw enough to consider this thing more than vaporware.
The Touch Book is the first netbook powered by a 600 MHz TI OMAP3 processor (built around ARM technology), 256 MB RAM, 3-axis accelerometer, an 8-gigabyte microSD card for storage and two batteries providing up to 15 hours of usage between charges. The 8.9-inch screen can display resolutions up to 1024x768 and uses a resistive touch panel.There's also the usual offerings of 802.11b/g/n wi-fi and Bluetooth.

As a standalone tablet, the Touch Book is roughly 9.5"x7"x1" and weighs about a pound. When docked to the keyboard, it is about 1.4-inches thick and weighs 2 pounds. All of the Touch Book's guts, except for one of the batteries, are housed in the tablet portion of the device, so that it's fully functional while detatched from the keyboard.

The chipset fits on a motherboard about the size of an index card, and is heavily optimized to get the best performance out of the hardware. Part of this involves stacking the RAM directly on top of the processor in a package on package configuration. The lid of the touchbook also pops off, so you have easy access to the hardware and it's two internal USB ports you can use for dongles you dont want hanging off the side of the tablet.

As far as software goes, the OS is based around the Open Embedded Linux platform, but fully customized for the Touch Book hardware. As such, the Touch Book has the power to handle full screen video, and render OpenGL 3D graphics. Gentil says the Touch Book can run some of the same games found on the iPhone and plans to offer them in the future.

The Touch Book UI design depends on what configuration the hardware is in. When docked to the keyboard, the Touch Book uses a standard, cursor-based UI that looks like other Linux desktops. However, when in tablet mode, it uses a custom-designed, touch-based UI. The touch UI is based around spherical icons that rotate in a circular fashion as you swipe to the next one. Content is divided into three categories: web, apps and settings.

On the apps side, Touch Book will ship with both Firefox and

Fennec (Mobile Firefox), games that will make use of the accelerometer, plus various sorts of web and productivity apps, such as word processor and spreadsheet-type programs.

Always Innovating plans to start shipping the Touch Book in late May or early June, priced at $300 for the tablet alone, or $400 for the tablet and keyboard dock combination. Pre-ordering will begin next week, and you can order the Touch Book in either red or dark grey colors. Gentil says he would also like to release future iterations that include support for GPS and 3G mobile broadband.


NEW TOUCHBOOK COMBINES NETBOOK AND TOUCHSCREEN TABLET; PROVIDES THREE TIMES THE BATTERY LIFE AT UNDER TWO POUNDS
PALM DESERT, Calif. March 2, 2009: Always Innovating today unveiled the Touch Book, a versatile new device that works as both a netbook and a tablet thanks to a detachable keyboard and a 3D touchscreen user interface. The Touch Book, previewed at DEMO 09, weighs less than two pounds as a netbook and has a battery life of 10 to 15 hours – three times longer than most netbooks.
"The Touch Book is perfect for these tough economic times because you can use it in so many ways," said Gregoire Gentil, founder of Always Innovating and creator of the Touch Book. "You can use it as a netbook computer, a hand-held game device, or a video player. You can even reverse the keyboard to prop it up on a table in an inverted ‘V'. Finally, because it is magnetic, you can remove the keyboard and put the tablet on the fridge to serve as a kitchen computer or digital frame."
The Touch Book combines the best of open source software and open hardware with a sleek industrial design by designer Fred Bould. The innovative design includes internal USB plugs. "I hate having dongles hanging from my laptop – I often end up disconnecting them accidentally – so we opted to put the USB inside," said Gentil.
The Touch Book is the first netbook featuring an ARM processor from Texas Instruments, resulting in outstanding battery life, and a fan less, heat-and-noise-free system.
According to Chris Shipley, executive producer of the DEMO Conferences, the Touch Book's innovative architecture and industrial design earned it a spot on the DEMO conference stage. "The longer battery life is a boon to netbook users. But the Touch Book's versatility – its ability to function as a netbook as well as a standalone touchscreen tablet – makes it a breakthrough product," said Shipley
The Touch Book is expected to ship in late spring and will start at $299. Advance orders can be placed at http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/store/.

your kids can paint on the wall paper (and you can watch your movies on it)

Flexible Displays Get Touch Friendly

Last year, the Flexible Display Center showed off the first prototypes of displays so thin and light they can be rolled up and stuffed into your Levis or North Face backpack.
Now, the Center is saying it is ready with a touchscreen version. The touchscreen capability has been enabled by integrating a low-power display from E Ink and Epson, say researchers. E ink's technology also powers Amazon's Kindle and Sony's e-book reader.

Flexible diplays, or paper thin displays made almost entirely of plastic were of the biggest technology breakthroughs of 2008. The low-power displays are rugged, sunlight-readable, light weight and will allow users to enter, store and transmit real-time data, said Nick Colaneri, director of the Flexible Display Center in a statement.

The Center housed at Arizona State University has been working with the U.S. Army to create these

displays that could be available in limited field trials in about two to three years.
The flexible touchscreen display supports user input either by stylus pen or by touch. It consumes power only when the electronic paper is activated. Once sketched on the display, information can be stored or sent wirelessly before erasing.

Companies have already started working on creating manufacturing technology processes for these displays. In December, HP said it created the first prototype of an "affordable" flexible electronic display. HP's manufacturing process would allow flexible displays to be created using roll-to-roll manufacturing, much like how a newspaper is printed in the press. The move would reduce production costs, said HP.

What will a school look like in about 5 to 10 years from now

One area where the convergence between ICT and AV will grow big is undoubtfuly the educational world. So far a modern classroom has a smartboard (interactive whiteboard, a projector and maybe tv for school television as we have in The Netherlands) and if it is really fancy students work on laptops or fixed computers.

Well this is about to change. Teachers will use onenote to create their readers so they can easily share with the students (who can pretty nicely add their notes into this). Tables will become multitouch devices Students can share their table or laptop screen with the teacher or classroom and applications are developed in a way that helps teachers in giving all students the right challenges.

2D screens will be replaced by 3D screens so you can actually walk through what you see and all lessons are recorded and available as streaming media (or on demand afterwards so you can recheck some stuff you have missed during class)

Digital signage and room reservation systems will be used to plan the classes and communicate changes.

Also the process of checking if people make their own exams or when still at the age that education is not a free will thing but mandatory pupils can be traced using RFID to see if they did attend the classes (this same rfid enabled student card can give some discounts in stores and keep track on the classes you have attended or modules you did in a class)

These are just a few ideas but it is pretty obvious that this needs an integrated approach to ICT and AV since it's actually a perfect blend of both. Also it is not as far away as we think. There are actually already groups working on a multi touch table for a class room with the educational software. Also laptops are getting pretty common in some areas. The big thing here is to look which building blocks are available in the market and stack them in a smart way

Some links to related articles and blogs are:

A nice blogpost on ZDnet:
Multi-touch screens are very fashionable these days, but there are not many practical applications for them. Now, researchers at Durham University in the UK are using them to develop the world’s first interactive classroom. The new learning environments are using ‘interactive multi-touch desks that look and act like a large version of an Apple iPhone.’ Their initiative, called SynergyNet, has several goals, including the development of learning by sharing. So far, the research team has linked up with manufacturers to design software and desks that recognize multiple touches on the desktop. But read more…

A great article on EurekAlert
Smart desks make sci-fi a reality in the classroom
Schools are set for a Star Trek make-over thanks to the development of the world's first interactive classroom by experts at Durham University.
Researchers at the Technology-Enhanced Learning Research Group (TEL) are designing new learning environments using interactive multi-touch desks that look and act like a large version of an Apple iPhone.

Example: Click here to see how the new desks work: http://smart.dur.ac.uk/index.php?n=Main.MultitouchPage

The team observed how students and teachers interact in classes and how Information Communications technology (ICT) could improve collaboration. They then set about designing an interactive classroom solution called 'SynergyNet' to reflect TEL's aims of achieving active student engagement and learning by sharing, problem-solving and creating.
The team has linked up with manufacturers to design software, and desks that recognize multiple touches on the desktop, using vision systems that can see infrared light.
SynergyNet will integrate ICT into the fabric of the classroom.

The new desk with a 'multi-touch' surface will be the central component; the desks will be networked and linked to a main smartboard offering new opportunities for teaching and collaboration. Several students will be able to work together at a desk as the desks allow simultaneous screen contact by multiple users using fingers or pens. Durham researchers want to create a 'natural way' for students to use computers in class. The system encourages collaboration between students and teachers, and a move away from teacher-centric learning.
Read more

The SMART table
One touch on the SMART Table screen is never enough. Young students are drawn to its surface, where work and play come together in hands-on, collaborative activities.
The SMART Table is the first multitouch, multiuser interactive learning center that allows groups of primary students to work simultaneously on its surface. The table's interface is so intuitive that even the youngest of students can get started without instructions.

An overview of the TEL (Technology enhanced learning) projects
http://smart.dur.ac.uk/index.php?n=Main.HomePage. Here you also find some info on their 3D projects where gaming and learnig gets one (anyone said that learning could not be fun). A direct link is http://smart.dur.ac.uk/index.php?n=Main.VLS3D

MIT researchers make 'sixth sense' gadget

Just got this press announcement from AFP and when reading I already imagine a discussion with my kis on going to school. Just imagine......The gadget can look at an airplane ticket and let the user know whether the flight is on time, or recognize books in a book store and then project reviews or author information from the Internet onto blank pages

However this is absolutely cool

MIT researchers make 'sixth sense' gadget
13 hours ago

LONG BEACH, California (AFP) — US university researchers have created a portable "sixth sense" device powered by commercial products that can seamlessly channel Internet information into daily routines.

The device created by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) scientists can turn any surface into a touch-screen for computing, controlled by simple hand gestures.
The gadget can even take photographs if a user frames a scene with his or her hands, or project a watch face with the proper time on a wrist if the user makes a circle there with a finger.
The MIT wizards cobbled a Web camera, a battery-powered projector and a mobile telephone into a gizmo that can be worn like jewelry. Signals from the camera and projector are relayed to smart phones with Internet connections.

"Other than letting some of you live out your fantasy of looking as cool as Tom Cruise in 'Minority Report' it can really let you connect as a sixth sense device with whatever is in front of you," said MIT researcher Patty Maes. Maes used a Technology, Entertainment, Design Conference stage in Southern California on Wednesday to unveil the futuristic gadget made from store-bought components costing about 300 dollars (US).

The device can recognize items on store shelves, retrieving and projecting information about products or even providing quick signals to let users know which choices suit their tastes.
The gadget can look at an airplane ticket and let the user know whether the flight is on time, or recognize books in a book store and then project reviews or author information from the Internet onto blank pages. The gizmo can recognize articles in newspapers, retrieve the latest related stories or video from the Internet and play them on pages. "You can use any surface, including your hand if nothing else is available, and interact with the data," Maes said.

"It is very much a work in progress. Maybe in ten years we will be here with the ultimate sixth-sense brain implant."

OLPC 2.0.dual touch screen

This is an intersting development. The new OLPC has 2 (multi)touch screens. So you can use 1 as a keybord and the other as a screen but even cooler you can fold it to 1 big (ok, relatively spoken) screen taht act as 1 screen. great for multi touch apps (google maps will be even more fun this way and when combining with a GPS you have back your paper map but in a 2.0 version and interactive)

Not sure if the screens can act like 1 multitouch screen and hope they can ke the border around the screens a bit smaller (this is pretty thick in between the 2 screens) but definately a great development

Thanks to http://www.netbooknews.de/ a nice picture of the mockup (yes it's not in the shops yet unfortunalely)

Microsoft's SideSight: Something Apple Should Watch

Just ran into this and I think this is such a cool development I couldn't help to shameless copy the article from gearlog (just click to read it again at the gearlog blog, but also to read many more cool blog posts)

A new Microsoft-developed technology called SideSight looks like something that deserves to be on a next-generation iPod touch. Or in a magician's repertoire.



The SideSight technology is contained in yet another paper that company executives are presenting at the User Interface Software and Technology conference this week. (See Microsoft's take on new ways that cell phones could "talk" as well as guided tours of images.), The paper in question is titled "SideSight: Multi-"touch" Interaction Around Small Devices," and is authored by Alex Butler, Shahram Izadi, and Steve Hodges, all with Microsoft Research UK.
Touch was a revolutionary concept when it debuted with the iPhone, in part because it was implemented so well with gestures. Pinching, sliding and tapping the iPhone and iPod touch all directly impact the interface.



SideSight removes "touch" from the device and makes it a function of the paper, tabletop, or even the air that's next to the device. What does this mean? According to Microsoft, it opens up the possibility for "touch" functions to be built into tiny devices that don't actually need a touchscreen.



"Despite the flexibility of touchscreens, using such an input mode carries a number of tradeoffs," the paper's authors wrote. "For many mobile devices, e.g. wristwatches and music players, a touchscreen can be impractical because there simply isn't enough screen real estate. With a continued trend for ever-smaller devices, this problem is being exacerbated. Even when a touch-screen is practical, interacting fingers will occlude parts of the display, covering up valuable screen pixels and making it harder to see the results of an interface action."
So what can you actually do with SideSight? Quite a bit, as it turns out. By twisting one's hands appropriately on either side of the phone, objects could be rotated in place. Pages could be panned and scrolled by moving a hand up and down, and Microsoft also proved that text could be entered and edited on the main screen through a stylus while the other hand scrolled the page -- a movement that would be akin to the motions a user's hands would make if he or she were writing on a sheet of paper.



A quick motion toward the device could also be interpreted as a "click," according to Microsoft.
The key is a row of tiny optical sensors that look "outside" the device. In a prototype Microsoft built for the paper, the researchers took a HTC Touch mobile phone, and augmented it with two linear arrays of discrete infrared (IR) proximity sensors, specifically ten Avago HSDL-9100-021 940nm IR proximity sensors spaced 10 millimeters apart. Although only the sides of the phone were enhanced, the entire periphery of a device could include these sensors, the researchers said. The sensors can read inputs up to 10 centimeters away, just through reflected infrared light.

"We were pleasantly surprised by the performance of the SideSight sensors in the typical office environments we tried given that we took no special precautions to reject ambient light," the paper's authors wrote. "We attribute this in part to the fact that the sensors are looking horizontally rather than vertically upwards towards overhead lighting."
Individual fingers are sensed as a "blob" by the sensor array. One problem: users tend to drift one or more fingers into the area covered by the sensor field, the authors noted. Because they were unable to consistent determine which fingers were actively controlling the device and which were simply incidental, Microsoft decided to only look for a single finger, and use that to control the phone.



(The authors noted as well that the sensors weren't directly connected to the phone. Instead, they were connected via USB to a PC, and then to the phone via Bluetooth. The convoluted interface reduced the effective sensing capability to 11 frames per second, a limitation of the test rig and not the circuits.)



What does the future of SideSight look like? Improved power consumption, improved sensor range, and an enhanced prototype: "In the future we believe that it may be possible to print or-ganic electronic versions of such sensors, and so we are also interested in exploring a SideSight configuration that has the entire casing covered in this type of proximity sensing material," the Microsoft Research employees wrote.