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"See-Through" Touchscreen Solves Fat Finger Problem
Posted by
kdawson
on Fri Dec 19, 2008 01:26 PM
from the eight-finger-salute dept.
from the eight-finger-salute dept.
Urchin sends along a New Scientist writeup on Microsoft Research's nanoTouch prototype, a way of operating a touch screen from the rear (video here). The prototype will be presented at the Computer and Human Interaction conference in Boston, Mass., in April 2009. Coming soon to a wristwatch or neck pendant near you. "Electronic devices have been shrinking for years, but you might be forgiven for thinking that one that's only a centimeter across would be just too difficult to operate. Microsoft Research's new nanoTouch device suggests otherwise. Touch-screens are difficult to control with any precision — the fingers get in the way of the tiny targets you're trying to hit. But putting the touch interface on the rear of the screen instead gives users more precision because they can still see the whole screen as they interact with it. Microsoft Research has produced a prototype device called nanoTouch with a rear-mounted touch interface. User tests show it lets users accurately and reliably hit targets just 2 millimeters across on a screen under a centimeter across."
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Engadget is reporting that a new "Touch Book" being previewed at DEMO '09 in California by the company "Always Innovating" promises a new take on mobile computing devices. Touting 10 to 15 hours of battery life, this ARM-powered netbook weighs less than two pounds, but the true magic comes with the detachable screen that can function as a completely stand-alone touchscreen tablet. The machine is currently running a Linux OS with a touchable 3D UI, the entire screen is magnetic for mounting on a metal surface, and the whole package is being projected for less than $300.
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I don't know about you... (Score:5, Funny)
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but I don't like it when people operate things from the rear.
Especially if "fat fingers" are involved.
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"Arm-Chair Touch Controller" or
"Monday Morning Touch-Back"
Re:I don't know about you... (Score:5, Funny)
Hey guys, did you know that sometimes innocuous stuff can be rephrased in a way that suggests you're talking about sex?
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Re:I don't know about you... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:I don't know about you... (Score:5, Funny)
Dad?
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That's what SHE said!!
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Finally living up to their name (Score:3, Interesting)
"Micro"soft.
I'll be here all weekend, folks!
Does anybody else think that eventually we might see some sort of tiny "stylus pad" that fits round the end of a finger? It could be a little white dot, so we can see where we're "clicking", there-by further decreasing fat finger syndrome.
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Does anybody else think that eventually we might see some sort of tiny "stylus pad" that fits round the end of a finger? It could be a little white dot, so we can see where we're "clicking", there-by further decreasing fat finger syndrome.
Maybe something like this? http://www.truetip.com/ [truetip.com]
Re:Finally living up to their name (Score:5, Funny)
We're sorry, the fingers you have used to dial are too fat. To obtain a special dialing wand, please mash the keypad with your palm now
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I've never heard of this before. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I've never heard of this before. (Score:5, Insightful)
What about Surface [microsoft.com] (a multi-touch platform), or their Image compositing software [microsoft.com]?
Don't worry, I run openbsd, and a few different linuxes, but seriously...microsoft does some interesting stuff! The microsoft-hate that goes on around here is kindof silly.
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Re:I've never heard of this before. (Score:5, Funny)
but seriously...microsoft does some interesting stuff! The microsoft-hate that goes on around here is kindof silly.
Blasphemer!
I banish you from Slashdot, and you shall be sacrificed to the all-mighty penguin!
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Surface was kind of a stunt, an amalgam that demos superbly doesn't really have any broad application. I notice it gets major placement in the new Day the Earth Stood Still, and they even use the object-recognition when they place objects on the tabletop (though, in the movie as in real life, this is simulated and doesn't actually work without a lot of cheating.)
Photosynth is slick though.
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Re:I've never heard of this before. (Score:5, Informative)
That image compositing software is extremely awesome. If you'd like to learn more about it, check out this article [istartedsomething.com].
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Don't know about Image composing software, but the concept of 'Surface' has surfaced plenty of times before Microsoft. [billbuxton.com] When I saw this, I immediately remembered back in my days at the UofT, I think I took the HCI class in 97, that's when I first saw the multi-touch screen concept, with ideas of dragging/dropping various windows on the table, overlaying various 'filters', for example one filter would be used for zoom function, another filter would OCR text, another filter would convert file formats etc.
Re:I've never heard of this before. (Score:5, Insightful)
I certainly see a lot of interesting things demo'd at Microsoft R&D.
And then get promptly ignored by the rest of the company, and never actually show up for market.
Contrast this to, say, Apple, who never gives demos like that unless they're actually launching the product in the next few months -- or right away.
Microsoft is too large a company to hate entirely. Bungie was part of them for awhile, after all -- I wanted to hate Halo for that, but it ended up actually being a good game. And they do seem to let their R&D department do some interesting things.
Then they let business concerns drive everything else, and we end up with crap like Vista.
Anyone want to guess how much better Microsoft would be with, say, Ballmer gone?
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Anyone want to guess how much better Microsoft would be with, say, Ballmer gone?
Well, I think I can say for sure that if Ballmer left there'd almost certainly be more seats on the Board. But I kind of doubt he'd ever wind up losing the title of Chairman.
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We have had news about other devices having the touchpart on the rear earlier on Slashdot, so this isn't something totally new. Unless it was Microsoft that time to. It''s a good solution non the less.
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Re:I've never heard of this before. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is first thing in a long time from Microsoft that has truly impressed me. Amazing what you can accomplish with a little fear of competition. If this is truly novel, nice job!
If you didn't read the article, all they did is put the touch sensitive portion on the back and have that activate a cursor on the front.
At first I thought "Wow, that's a great idea"
Then I thought "Duh, why didn't anyone else think of it?"
Then I thought "Man, that's really limiting" - Imagine how slow typing would be on one of these devices. For each character you'd have to press to see the cursor, adjust for the actual location, then 'lock in' to press the button. Don't get me wrong, it's great for browsing and playing some games, but the Iphone's typing system would be better than this and an actual keyboard is still king.
I do give some props to Microsoft though, I'm glad someone finally thought to do this.
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Re:I've never heard of this before. (Score:5, Insightful)
Better would be something that could sense the position of your finger before you actually touch it, so that you could reliably cue in on the cursor position and only touch the sensor when the cursor was correctly positioned.
My own main objection is that most of the time I see people using their touch-screen phone/pda with it nestled in the palm of their hand. Holding it that way you don't have access to the back of the device.
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Just reiterating what someone else pointed out:
The above is from May 2007...
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Really cool and simple idea. (Score:3)
With bigger screen people could even sit opposite you and you could watch what they do.
A face to face game of transparent screen checkers would be sweet.
1cm across? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Dupe (Score:5, Informative)
only useful for hand-held devices (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, it's a novel idea and hopefully one that will catch on. However, it's certainly not practical for "proper" monitors, or coffee-table sized thingys (like the toy microsoft demo'd a couple of years ago). Although I suppose in those cases, there is less need for small targets, as FFS is less of a problem
I still think the whole concept of touch screens for office use is fundementally flawed. It requires you to have your arms raised to operate the screen - which is an unnatural position and very tiring to do for long periods of time. It does look impressive on s.f. files - with guys wavinhg their arms around. However, in terms of results obtained for human energy expended they're very inefficient and I suspect the consequences would make RSI claims pale into insignificance.
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... the whole concept of touch screens for office use is fundementally flawed. It requires you to have your arms raised to operate the screen - which is an unnatural position and very tiring to do for long periods of time.
Agreed. But this "see-through" demo shows that an innovation can potentially fix what at first seems to be a major problem. (Of course I won't know if this "see-through" idea is really a valid solution until I have a chance to play with it myself...).
In the case of touchscreen technology, I agree that pressing on a vertical screen would get tiring real quick. And the sometimes-offered solution of having the touchscreen be horizontal (like Microsoft's "Surface") is also non-optimal (it would hurt your ne
typing pool (Score:2)
Wristwatch? (Score:4, Insightful)
Ya, I tried pressing my watch from the back, but my wrist got in the way. On the up side, my pulse is strong.
Anyone else thinking people won't like that? (Score:2)
First, one cm across is a pretty hard to hit target. We're below that already anyway, but let's say one cm. That I "cover" the target with my finger shouldn't be that much of a problem, I guess. People are usually able to memorize the location of that icon they want to press for the fraction of a second it takes to press it. So if it's under my finger, I press it. Easy, huh?
Now, reaching around and tapping it from behind is a bit more tricky. You have to think reverse. It's not as bad as looking in the mirr
M$ see-through touchscreens not that impressive (Score:5, Funny)
Google's already got working prototypes of see-thru fingers.
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Stupid Question (Score:2)
How can you hit a target of 2mm when your finger is a centimeter across?
I would hate to have to use an interface that actually relied on having this level of accuracy from the inputdev. even if they can extract a really good model of where you apply the pressure to the screen, it's not exactly trivial, or even possible, to turn that into an "intended point" or path.
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Operator: The fingers you have used to dial are too fat. To obtain a special dialing wand, please mash the keypad with your palm now.
Apple has the patent (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.slashgear.com/apple-patent-shifts-controls-to-rear-of-ipod-105191/
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Well, at least Microsoft has sped up their development cycle. Now they're stealing Apple's ideas before Apple has even implemented them.
ObInnuendo: Though somehow I'm not surprised it's Microsoft promoting a new way to take it in the rear.
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Re:Why does the screen have to be see-through? (Score:4, Insightful)
Many people will have a hard time getting a feeling for exactly where their fingers are if the screen is not see-through.
Think about the first time you used a mouse. It takes about 20 seconds to get used to the idea that you're moving your hand in two dimensions and the cursor moves in two dimensions, even if you can't watch both at once. If you've used a trackpad on a laptop, it's EXACTLY like this (except it's not on the back of the device). I think you'd be surprised how quickly you'd get used to this.
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