back to the future: the touch guys missed something

Back to the Future: The Touch Guys Missed Something

Gary L. BarrettChief Technology Officer

TouchInternational

© Copyright 2012 Touch International, Inc

What We Will Cover

The Touch Guys Are Clueless

Introducing the Theremin

Examining Where We Are Today

More Ways the Touch Guys Failed

The Future of Interactivity


The Touch Guys Missed Something

The Touch Guys are Clueless

Most Interactive Breakthroughs Came from Someone Other than Touch Guys

Examples

George Hurst, founder of Elographics, was trying to make a digitizer.

Bill Pepper, developer of original analog S-Cap touch screen, was trying to make a fretless, stringless guitar.

John Fenn and Daryl Stoddard, inventors of the first matrix touch panel, were making an electronic chess board.


Examining the Theremin

1920

Léon Theremin invents the thereminfor Russian Government as a

proximity sensing security device.

Is recognized as the world’s first electronic instrument.




The Theremin

1951

Featured in American Film The Day the Earth Stood Still

//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3f/Day_the_Earth_Stood_Still_1951.jpg



How Does the Theremin Relate to Touch and Interactivity?

Operates on an invisible electromagnetic field

Relies on the body’s natural capacitance


Where Are We Now?


12 Reasons for Projected Capacitive

1. Lasts Forever

2. Does Multi-touch

3. Great Optics

4. Unbreakable/All Plastic

5. Contoured and formed

6. Lots of electronics options

7. Low cost

8. Low power

9. Proximity Sensing (Z-axis)

10. No Coordinate Drift

11. High Resolution

12. Pen Input


Reflecting on the Past and Looking to the Future

Questions to Ask

We had interactivity at our fingertips in 1920. Why did it take so long to get to where we are today?

How do we apply what we know today, with what we missed in the past, to get to where we want to be in the future?


Why the Touch Guys Missed the Boat

First Miss: Durability

In the early 80's there were three touch technologies

IR

Resistive

Zone capacitive



Second Miss: Multi-Touch

Multi-touch was rejected for about 25 years due to ghosting.



Third Miss: Near-Field Imaging

http://www.tci.de/service/dokumentation/touchtechnologien/near-field-imaging-nfi/



2 million Projected Capacitive Verifone units were shipped pre-iPhone, but no one realized the display’s potential until Apple.


Fast Forward to the Future


Putting the Past, Present & Future Together

How do you combine thecapabilities of the Theremin &

PCAP with our dreams of interactivity?


Putting the Past, Present & Future Together

Disney Research has Figured out the Solution

PCAP + Gestures + Motion = Touché

Touché = Swept Frequency Capacitive Sensing


Past, Present and Future Finally Meet

Touché: Enhancing Touch Interaction


Putting it All Together

Bottom Line

Interactivity should not be confined to just touch.

Think Bigger.

Next Steps

Touch guys need to go back to the drawing board and look at the technology at our fingertips since 1920 and look to combine with the PCAP of today.

Non-touch guys should channel their inner Disney.

back to the future: the touch guys missed something

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