Transform a Regular LCD Into a Touchscreen

eZtaR writes "NAVisis is introducing a new USB gadget (for Windows only including Vista) called LaptopTablet. You mount it onto the side of your regular LCD monitor to transform it into a fully functional touchscreen, controlled with an included pen. The gadget is priced at around $100 and seems a good alternative for Photoshoppers."

Oy ...

Let me know when some high end printing company bundles this so I can go to work on Photoshopping my paycheck. (For educational purposes of course)

TabletMouse

RThe TabletMouse looks interesting as well. The company should probably hire a better translator though. "Welcome to NAVIsis, The Best Company of Tablet Device"? Apparently, all your mice are belong to them.

I can't put my finger on it

...but there has to be a pr0n application here somewhere.

Just a gadget

Unfortunatly, I don't think this will be much more than a neat gadget, and it certainly won't live up to the needs of a serious artist. There's no mention of accuracy or pressure sensitivity, and I didn't see art/photoshop listed on the website. I'd be keen on seeing some reviews of it, and the prospect of attaching it to a laptop screen sounds pretty interesting but for the price I'd rather just pick up a small Wacom tablet. The fact it's made mainly for a laptop monitor only and claims to work only for Windows makes it a pass for me.

Re:Just a gadget

His "borderline troll" is undoubtedly accurate.

Pressure sensitivity is key for most any artist, it's where the real value of the Wacom tablets lie, allowing you to control the quality of your brush strokes with pressure as you work. That's a bigger part of the tablet's advantage over the mouse than the actual "pen" method of input for many artists. This makes no mention of any kind of pressure sensitivity. Clearly, it can't make the screen pressure sensitive. Perhaps they could build a sensor into the pen that measures pressure and use the edge device for position, but that doesn't look like it's what they did, their pen looks like a "dumb" device, not a wireless pressure sensor. Even if it did have a pressure sensor in the tip, it's going to have to be so sensitive that it requires a really light touch, or else you're going to mar your screen, and that would greatly diminish its value.

As far as resolution is concerned: they say "sampling" is at "about" 400 DPI (whatever that means), but then it says "recognized resolution 0.2mm" which is about 125 dpi. The Wacom tablets artists work with recognize a resolution of about 5,000 lines per inch.

I'm sure you can draw a cartoony sketch with it just fine, but there's no way this device as it stands now is going to replace tablets for professional artists. That doesn't mean it's worthless. A lot of thing you want to do with touch sensitive displays isn't professional art. These could be a much cheaper alternative for touch-sensitive user interfaces and games and such. Maybe in future generations they will add some sort of pressure sensitivity through the pen and increase the resolution by an order of magnitude. Until then, the "borderline troll" is correct.

Ugggh ...

Who wants to hold their arm out, hovering over the keyboard, attempting to "draw" on a surface that isn't firm (laptop hinges are not designed to resist pushing on the screen)? This is a terrible idea in my opinion. The big advantage of *real* tablets is that they fold "roughly" flat so you can write/draw on them more naturally. Even at that, they are usually too thick, making writing uncomfortable.

Why LCD only?

Seems the only thing making this thing LCD-only is the design of the plastic clip for the sensor that determins the position of the stylus. Any geek worth his bandwidth could use this with a CRT.

Very interesting product either way. Seems better and cheaper than a Wacom.

Smashing

Quite literally. Laptop screens aren't designed to be touched, let alone scraped and prodded all over with a stylus. Or does this thing come with a plexiglass overlay?

Aren't normal LCDs a bit fragile for this?

The touch screens and active stylus input displays have a thick glass or plexiglass or other durable substance to protect the screen, but every LCD (laptop or desktop) I've ever set up has a warning about not touching the screen in w/ the setup / operating instructions.

My boss and several co-workers regularly touch the LCDs here in the office, making the surface bend and distorting the image and it makes me wince everytime.

William
(who is looking forward to _all_ LCDs coming w/ some sort of digitizer built-in after manufacturers decide the added durability and lessened expense of one manufacturing line instead of two makes economic sense)

ICK.

Needs a pen, that sucks. I prefer real touchscreens where you simply touch them like the ELO.
as for photoshoppers, doodling on a monitor sucks. Using a pen tablet on the desk is far easier and way more intuitive as well as not having your hand and pen device in the way blocking your view.

This is a neat device, but for the price you can get kits from ebay to add a real touchscreen layer to your lcd or laptop instead of something that requires a special pen.

Photoshoppers ?

A serious graphic artist probably wants a CRT for accurate colour, gamma, etc. And at least an A4 Wacom if they prefer drawing, but on a horizontal rather than vertical surface.

Most pros I know use a Wacom in Photoshop or Illustrator, but mostly they're mouse people.

I can't imagine that a serious Photoshopper would want to use an LCD screen and draw on it with a stylus, it's just not accurate enough.

Re:Photoshoppers ?

Look at a wacom cintiq -- they're really nice.

The reason they're mouse people more than tablet people is that most software sucks on a tablet -- many on the common UI elements that work well with a mouse fail completely on a tablet. You really have to design with pen based interaction in mind.

Look at Alias SketchBook for an example of a UI that works well on tablets

This thing sucks

I don't mind that it uses a stylus, I use one on my Waacom tablet.

But Jesus, why does it have to be this huge cancerous growth hanging off the side of the laptop?

Only $100?

This could turn out to be a very cost effective solution for Point of Sale registers. Touch screen flat panels are expensive (and flat panels are popular with PoS devices since they take up much less counter space) so this could lower costs per register by $100 -$200.

just dont touch too fast

or you'll exhaust all your server resour.... forget it.

touchscreens, ugh...

other than in a POS or evoting application, I honestly do not see why why people want a touchscreen.

I'm talking about a laptop/tablet configuration.
yes, the idea sounds great and people will say that their productivity will increase, yada, yada, yada, but MOST people who say this have never used one or experienced the frustration when their touchscreen goes out of calibration, which will happen ALOT!!!

I support a salesforce of about 200 who use various touchscreen PCs from HP Ipaq to Fujitsu tablets and laptops. at first they were ecstatic about the touchscreens then they slowly figured out that it was actually quicker for them to use the mouse/keyboard instead of having to touch the screen x/y on this side of this form and -x/y on this side of another button, etc in order to put in their orders.
the screen doesnt go out of calibration uniformly across the whole screen, but generally in 5 different ways in the 4 corners and in the middle. this is a nightmare to use and to support!

slashdotted

looks like the host is slashdotted, here is a mirrordot link to the first page of the article, does anyone have a better mirror of this site?

http://www.mirrordot.org/stories/a3c962572c00cfd47 6bc23e2cfff8f72/index.html [mirrordot.org]

Neat!

Last time I read /. at 0 that's for sure. A bunch of people worried about pressing on an LCD not designed for it, and then a bunch of trolls. Guess all stories are like this.

The company's in Korea. Any slashdotters there trying it with linux / trying it out in the store?
This could really hurt Anoto, which makes an extremely advanced system of bluetooth/optical recognition pens and special paper using a pattern that is unique for every page.

Anoto, like the Flypen toy based on its tech, has all kinds of applications. For example a checkbox called "Fax" at the bottom of a sheet of paper that when you check it, it gets faxed. Navisis has a portable version for pdas and maybe phones, called the phone pen which looks quite cool, and the mouse version that works on your table top is quite neat too. They do sell protective covering for your lcd as well, anyway I'd like to hear from someone who really uses it, and then hear about if it just looks like a mouse to the system or if it needs a driver.

Cool, but

what about gorilla arm [wikipedia.org]?

Down with the mouse?

This is very good news. At last we got a separate device which I can hook up to any screen and which provides touchscreen functionality. Well, yes it's windoze only and laptop only but hey, the technology is here and I think they will be making devices like this for other monitors and OS's a well. I always hated windowing environments with OK/Cancel/etc buttons because they made me use the mouse. Touchscreen and pen is better because you may look where you point your cursor AND see your hand and pen at the same time. I thought it's no big deal until I tried to use applications with lots of small buttons packed together like MS Word or OpenOffice. Mis-clicking is so annoying. Maybe it's just me and my shakey hands but come on! Resume: I'd like to have such a device for my CRT monitor. THIS one is not for me though yet.

There are already touchscreen kits

Which basically tape over an existing screen, LCD or CRT. I briefly investigated them for an epos system I was putting together but eventually decided on a ELO screen, why add hassle you don't need.

e.g.
http://www.magictouch.com/builtin.html [magictouch.com]

Given a few years, they'll be built into almost all screens.
 

sounds familiar

This sounds like a device we use occasionally in our office. I wish I knew what it was called so I could link it.. but I'll just have to deal with describing it. You attach the device to the corner of a whiteboard, use a special marker, and it records your writing. You can then plug the device into a laptop via USB to download the board notes. We've had this thing for at least 2 years.

Sounds like simliar technology.

Power Pen

They should call it the Power Pen. It's so bad.

About Damn Time We Change GIMP's Name

This being Slashdot...

an alternative for Photoshoppers...

and GIMP/GIMP pimps/GIMPoids/GIMPles/GIMPhomaniacs

take your pick
 

LCD second monitor flat on desk?

Am I the only one thinking...

cool, I'll just spend an extra $100 on a 17" or 19" LCD monitor and lie it flat on the desk. I'll drive it with the second monitor output of my graphics card. For screen protection I'll buy some kind of 3M film from staples for $10 a roll or a 200 pack of laser printable transparency sheets.

or even - I could roll my own context sensitive touch tablet, instead of a $1500 OLED keyboard

...with new gadgets comes new opportunities.

"Photoshoppers"??

I think you meant to say "graphics professionals who use the software application Adobe Photoshop®."

sincerely,
- Adobe

huh

Well, im reading that and thinking wow, that is interesting.

Until I get to: The gadget is priced at around $100 and seems a good alternative for Photoshoppers.

Im not much of a phtotoshopper, but what unmet need does this meet for photoshoppers?

Not a touchscreen

Looking at the technology of this device, it does not monitor touch, but instead the position of the pen. A "real" touchscreen does not require a special pen to register a touch, your finger is typically used. There are many types of touchscreens, some actually respond to the force of your touch (resistive technology), some sense the capacitance of your finger, others the acoustic damping caused by your touch, and a new technoloty even "listens" to the sound of your touch and calculates where you touched.

Ultrasound?

1. is it 'ultra' enough to be completely inaudible? I've had some experience with ultrasonic devices for cleaning etc. and they are unbearable to be around due to the high-pitched shriek they emit. To be fair, this is at much higher power levels than this pen will use.

2. Ultrasonics can be quite destructive, both on the laptop screen and on the bones in your hand (again, more of a problem at high power levels).

Oxymoron of the century...

"Enjoyable ink chatting on MSN Messenger."

Blast from the past

It's not a touch screen, it's a Light Pen [wikipedia.org], straight outta 1957. Everything old is new again...

Not for Photoshop

> The gadget is priced at around $100 and seems a good alternative for Photoshoppers."

In the same way that a cut finger is an alternative to a pencil.

Actual art tablets that are specifically designed to use with Photoshop (and vice versa) start at $99.

Or another option that works on Macs

http://www.magictouch.com/addon.html [magictouch.com]

It's priced around US$200, but works with your fingers and have a mac version.

note taking

There seem to be a lot of comments saying that this device is useless to artists because of lack of resolution and pressure sensitivity. True, but it misses the point. I used to use a Psion 7, a lovely little A5 size clamshell machine running a proprietary OS. It was ideal for taking notes in meetings as I could go straight from touch-typing to sketching a diagram straight into the word processor. These days I use MS OneNote, which is slightly more clumsy in that respect (much better in other ways). If I have a tablet I can sketch into my notes, but usually it's too much hassle to take the tablet and find room on a table in a crowded meeting room. A device that clipped on to the screen would help to a certain extent. The Psion would still be better in having the hw built in, internal stowage for the stylus, and a fancy hinge that brought the bottom of the screen forward to avoid the machine tipping backwards when the touch screen was used.

NAVisis is not really new with this technology

I have a business and have implemented the use of a S/W program that is heavily based on touchscreen technology for production. The funny thing is that I have gone through 2 of these expensive suckers (CRT & LCD) before getting smart. I now buy cheap lcd's and cheap overlays!! The cost is almost a third of the price of the complete unit and work great. But here's the real funny thing, I always, always always, always check a technology company's bottom line of their web site for their copyright date to see how good they are keeping the public web stuff current. NAVisis's web site has a copyright of 2002. :-o This technology is not new stuff anyway they are just catching up.

3 * 180 degree

Noticed how the keyboard and the display on a laptop are not in a nice position for drawing? The only thing you need is 3 times 180 degree rotation. 1 For opening your laptop. 2 For rotating your laptop. So your display is pointing towards you. 3 For Vista to position the UI upside down.