4 ms·

Thin Film Transforms Any Surface Into a Massive Multitouch Screen

27 points by riledhel 15y ago

drivebyacct2 15y ago
A blog named "singularity hub" that spends two paragraphs questioning the use of massive touchscreens on any surface? Huh.
sbierwagen 15y ago
Has singularityhub ever published anything of actual worth, rather than rewrites of press releases?
count 15y ago
How much does the Touch Foil cost? I'm seeing huge price ranges ($999-19999), I assume it varies based on size and multi vs single touch capability? Has anybody on HN used this stuff?
- jamesbritt 15y ago
  I went looking around for where I could buy some but it's like some military secret. Call our partners, call for a price. WTF, I just want some to play around with.
  - etherael 15y ago
    And they just want to put you in contact with people specialising in figuring out how much money they can extract from your purchasing process. :)
  - prawn 15y ago
    Sadly, so much of the web deals with online pricing in the same way and it's incredibly frustrating.
watmough 15y ago
Sounds like this might be a cheap way to the touchscreens that Windows 8 users will be demanding. It is absolutely not going to make any sense at all to ship a Windows 8 laptop without a touchscreen, though as seems to be the case sometimes, maybe we can expect Apple to blaze a trail and put a (larger) touch surface on the MBP line.
- jamesbritt 15y ago
  Windows touchscreen laptops are old news. http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9140385/Review_3_Windows_7_touch_screen_laptops http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9140385/Review_3_Wind... Said items with a suitable OS are a different story
- Someone 15y ago
  I think the question is still on whether touch screens are a good idea for laptop screens. Even when used on the lap, with the screen almost horizontal, I have my doubts; I think the screen may be too far away from the body to prevent gorilla arm syndrome. With the laptop on a table, that risk increases. On the other hand, A laptop with a rotatable screen that can be transformed into a tablet would benefit from a touch screen.
- joezydeco 15y ago
  This stuff looks too coarse to use as a laptop controller. Watch the second video at 1:04, the cursor is way off from where he pointed. The cheaper Chinese procap screens use single-axis sensing wires which kind of correlates to what they're describing here. If you can make a massive 167-inch display, you need a hell of a lot of room to carry your Y-axis signals back to the controller. So you go punt and just make very long X-axis sensors. These kind of controllers, um, work, in most normal cases. I just don't see anything in the demo videos showing any kind of precision. Procap displays also tend to need a lot of TLC when placed over a live noisy LCD display, which probably explains why all of these demos are using rear-projection video (except maybe the last one?)
prawn 15y ago
Could you buy a cheap 46"ish LCD, lay it flat as a table with an enclosing bezel, and then use this technology to create touchscreen coffee tables cheaper than MS Surface was offering? Have always wanted something like this to browse photos, queue up music or videos, browse a TV guide, deal with home automation, security cameras, etc.
seclorum 15y ago
Anyone know if this uses the SoundTouch patent? http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20080284755 http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20080284755
- joezydeco 15y ago
  The article talks about "nanowires" embedded in polymer, so no this isn't acoustic.

27 points by riledhel 15y ago

A blog named "singularity hub" that spends two paragraphs questioning the use of massive touchscreens on any surface? Huh.

sbierwagen 15y ago

Has singularityhub ever published anything of actual worth, rather than rewrites of press releases?

count 15y ago

How much does the Touch Foil cost? I'm seeing huge price ranges ($999-19999), I assume it varies based on size and multi vs single touch capability? Has anybody on HN used this stuff?

jamesbritt 15y ago
I went looking around for where I could buy some but it's like some military secret. Call our partners, call for a price. WTF, I just want some to play around with.
- etherael 15y ago
  And they just want to put you in contact with people specialising in figuring out how much money they can extract from your purchasing process. :)
- prawn 15y ago
  Sadly, so much of the web deals with online pricing in the same way and it's incredibly frustrating.

watmough 15y ago

Sounds like this might be a cheap way to the touchscreens that Windows 8 users will be demanding. It is absolutely not going to make any sense at all to ship a Windows 8 laptop without a touchscreen, though as seems to be the case sometimes, maybe we can expect Apple to blaze a trail and put a (larger) touch surface on the MBP line.

jamesbritt 15y ago
Windows touchscreen laptops are old news. http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9140385/Review_3_Windows_7_touch_screen_laptops http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9140385/Review_3_Wind... Said items with a suitable OS are a different story
Someone 15y ago
I think the question is still on whether touch screens are a good idea for laptop screens. Even when used on the lap, with the screen almost horizontal, I have my doubts; I think the screen may be too far away from the body to prevent gorilla arm syndrome. With the laptop on a table, that risk increases. On the other hand, A laptop with a rotatable screen that can be transformed into a tablet would benefit from a touch screen.
joezydeco 15y ago
This stuff looks too coarse to use as a laptop controller. Watch the second video at 1:04, the cursor is way off from where he pointed. The cheaper Chinese procap screens use single-axis sensing wires which kind of correlates to what they're describing here. If you can make a massive 167-inch display, you need a hell of a lot of room to carry your Y-axis signals back to the controller. So you go punt and just make very long X-axis sensors. These kind of controllers, um, work, in most normal cases. I just don't see anything in the demo videos showing any kind of precision. Procap displays also tend to need a lot of TLC when placed over a live noisy LCD display, which probably explains why all of these demos are using rear-projection video (except maybe the last one?)

prawn 15y ago

Could you buy a cheap 46"ish LCD, lay it flat as a table with an enclosing bezel, and then use this technology to create touchscreen coffee tables cheaper than MS Surface was offering? Have always wanted something like this to browse photos, queue up music or videos, browse a TV guide, deal with home automation, security cameras, etc.

seclorum 15y ago

Anyone know if this uses the SoundTouch patent? http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20080284755 http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20080284755

joezydeco 15y ago
The article talks about "nanowires" embedded in polymer, so no this isn't acoustic.