TouchSmarter: Touch Screen Gadgets

There is little doubt that Steve Jobs has wet the public’s appetite for touch interfaces. Barry Collins over at PC Pro has some thoughts on the likelihood of a touch enabled Mac or tablet device from Apple.

Statements are made indicating that OS X is inherently better suited to fingertip operation than Windows is. I do not think that is true at all. Both OS’s are currently mouse-centric and it will take a refresh of the OS UI to really bring out the multi touch goodness. However, the point is valid that the upgrade to OS X, Tiger, may include substantial support for a touch UI.

I hope his January prediction proves correct, as it will be a great day for computer enthusiasts everywhere.

Multi touch is the buzzword of 2007, with the iPhone, MS Surface, and Jeff Ban’s videos all contributing to the hype around this technology. All of these focus on redefining how we work with information by interacting with it directly on a computer screen.

However, critics have loudly complained that multi touch is not a practical technology for everyday computing. As much as we love multi touch/touch screens, we tend to agree. Even as multi touch takes off, the way people use their desktop PC day in and day out is unlikely to benefit directly.

One of the best aspects of innovative technologies like multi touch, is that it inspires more innovation. Loudestnoise.com posted a brilliantly simple (in concept) idea. Put multi touch where it will do the most good for the most people… right on the mouse. Perhaps it won’t be revolutionary, but it certainly will serve a purpose. Being able to scroll without a scroll wheel, or allowing the user to pinch to resize items will simplify and speed up common, repetitive tasks.

VOIPPhoneWatch.com has a rehash of all the multi touch goodness that makes Apple’s iPhone the most desired gadget of the year.

This is another very unique, very innovative interface project. PICO (Physical Intervention in Computational Optimization) not only accepts multiple physical inputs, but it actually physically moves those inputs (in the form of electromagnetic pucks). From http://www.jamespatten.com/pico/:

 PICO is a tabletop interaction surface that can track and move small objects on top of it. It has been used for complex spatial layout problems such as cellular telephone tower layout. The interface provides ample opportunities for improvisation by allowing the user to employ a rich variety of everyday physical objects as interface elements. The physical form of many everyday mechanical systems helps users quickly discover how these systems work and how to use them. One example is the record turntable. Because the mechanism through which this device functions is exposed to the user, some users have developed interaction techniques that the inventors of the device likely had never imagined, such as “scratching” the record as a part of musical performance. In a similar spirit, we have developed a system called Pico (Physical Intervention in Computational Optimization) that simultaneously represents and controls the high level structure of a software process with a mechanical process. The user can leverage his or her mechanical intuition about the way physical objects respond to forces and interact with each other to understand how common objects, such as a rubber band or coffee cup, might be used to constrain the underlying software process. Objects on the Pico table are moved not only under software control using electromagnets but also by users standing around the table. The combination of these interactions, all governed by the friction and mass of the objects themselves directly affects the result of the task being performed. Additional information is graphically projected onto the table from above. To date we have built Pico applications for factory floor plan layout, CNC toolpath optimization, and cellular telephone tower layout.

 

MicroPCTalk asks the question: how often do you use a touch screen on a tablet PC?

Like the author of that post, I find myself using touch to navigate, but falling back to keyboard for text entry. Navigating with your finger is just such a natural experience. The issue is that a finger is not an ideal pointing device, and buttons and text on screen is often rather small, so pointing your finger exactly where you want the computer to recognize the touch is often difficult.

This is where some of the work currently going on with multi touch may quickly benefit regular touch applications. What seems to be needed is some logic behind the scenes, which would analyze the finger press, and consider what the user wanted to touch, as opposed to exactly where they touched. For instance, when browsing the web, clicking on a text link is more likely the desired outcome compared to clicking on a plain text word. The PC should realize that and act accordingly, even if the finger touched slightly off of the hyperlink.

 Jazzmutant brings us further along with multi touch, retrofitting it into a 12 inch Fujitsu tablet pc. The most impressive elements to this device are in its user software. The video shows how an artist or designer could manipulate an image with one hand, while using the other to select various tools, or vary settings like zoom or rotation. This should immediately make the technology desired by graphic artists the world over.

In addition to this prototype shown at SIGGRAPH 07, Jazzmutant has shipping products like the Dextor, an innovative touch device for controlling audio.