Wacom makes strides in Touchscreen Tech

Wacom, on Friday, announced they've engineered a more sensitive capacitive touch screen. Using newly designed low-power circuitry and a patent pending technology that they've dubbed Reversing Ramped Field Capacitive (RRFC) touch.

What this means to a touchscreen interface is that even with a less than optimal battery level the RRFC touchscreen still delivers precise and drift-free cursor performance.

Other innovations of the RRFC touch, touted by Wacom, include the screen's superior optical performance, increased sensitivity, and durability through use of a non-glass surfaces.

Apple's multi-touch displays use older capacitive touchscreen technology, but in a more inventive way. With Wacom's new capacitive touchscreen you can use tablet with the screen and get dual touch action, but it's not the same at all.

If only Wacom and Apple would develop products together without patent restrictions, they might be able to realize an interface that conforms to us.

The video (tap Read More!), from last year, shows the direction we could be going.

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Computers Convey Sense of Touch

Multi-touch interfaces recently took center stage, again, with the introduction of newer Apple laptops outfitted with a multi-touch trackpad, and multi-touch is quickly working its way into your computer display as well.

My question is, how much feedback can this system give our actual sense of touch? Achieving this is a whole different set of objectives all together. A game controller does this, in a way. They’re a type of what is referred to as a haptic interface, the car crashes the joystick vibrates.

The newest haptic interface, developed by Ralph L. Hollis and team of Carnegie Mellon, allows you to feel a virtual product by providing users feedback on gravitational resistance and surface texture using magnetic levitation and, that’s right, a joystick. The difference here is the sensations that are delivered by Hollis’ haptic device mimic what the hand would feel with much more accuracy.

This is achieved through the implementation of a magnetic resistance to simulate sense of touch. The controller is topped with a hand grasp, and the stick ‘floats’, or is suspended by way of opposing magnetic fields in a bowl like apparatus.

Butterfly Haptics, the firm marketing the interface hopes to have this device ready and available by June or July.

Some expected applications include virtual surgery or virtual dentistry training. The trainees would be able sense the texture of a tissue, or feel the resistance from a tooth being drilled.

As the technology advances, haptic devices will seep into our everyday lives even further. Their pervasiveness is already evident. The popularity of vibrating cell phones and game controllers has eased this technology into our culture. Adapting more advanced haptic interfaces into our everyday lives shouldn’t be too much of a stretch.

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24hr Apple Store Air Rollout

The Apple store workers are all a twitter over the new laptop rollout that's taking place at the 24hr Apple store in Midtown Manhattan. They've cordoned off the laptop stations to setup the sexy new Airs and Powerbooks. "No pictures", one coffee fueled tech asserts. "What are these diva laptops?" I thought to myself. There are about a dozen or so folks standing outside the "velvet" rope waiting till the workers turn them loose on the coveted technology. I stopped by to try out the trackpad for myself and it looks, yep it's time, BACK IN A SEC!

That trackpad is larger and you can use one, two, or three fingers to activate the multi-touch functions. It takes a few tries to get it, but only a few. Tap and click, dragging, drag lock, two finger scrolling, picture rotate, pinch open and close, screen zoom, and three finger navigate all work like a charm. I want it, but alas they won't take my money no matter how much I beg. They're just not for sale yet. Big teasers.

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