Jeff Han demonstrates his multi-touch screen, which can respond to the movements of multiple fingers or hands; here he enlarges an image.
Image: Brian Maranan Pineda
In Brief
- Rather than responding to the presence of a single finger, multi-touch computer screens can follow the instructions of many fingers simultaneously.
- A wall-size screen developed by Perceptive Pixel can respond to as many as 10 fingers or multiple hands. Microsoft and Mitsubishi are offering smaller, specialized systems for hotels, stores, and engineering and design firms.
- Multi-touch computing could one day free us from the mouse as our primary computer interface, the way the mouse freed us from keyboards.
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Infographic
How it Works: Multi-touch Surfaces Explained
When Apple’s iPhone hit the streets last year, it introduced so-called multi-touch screens to the general public. Images on the screen can be moved around with a fingertip and made bigger or smaller by placing two fingertips on the image’s edges and then either spreading those fingers apart or bringing them closer together. The tactile pleasure the interface provides beyond its utility quickly brought it accolades. The operations felt intuitive, even sensuous. But in laboratories around the world at the time of the iPhone’s launch, multi-touch screens had vastly outgrown two-finger commands. Engineers have developed much larger screens that respond to 10 fingers at once, even to multiple hands from multiple people.
It is easy to imagine how photographers, graphic designers or architects—professionals who must manipulate lots of visual material and who often work in teams—would welcome this multi-touch computing. Yet the technology is already being applied in more far-flung situations in which anyone without any training can reach out during a brainstorming session and move or mark up objects and plans.
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2 Comments
Add CommentI've been "untethered from the ubiquitous mouse" for years. The inventor of the keyboard I use was hired away by Apple many years ago, but the web site is maintained. Read all about it at http://fingerworks.com/.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wish the keyboards would go back into production. The device is pretty bomb-proof, but I still dread anything happening to mine
I note with interest Stuart Browns article on multi-touch screens. The technology certainly is interesting.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne point that many seem to have forgotten though. The average viewing distance, that is, eyes to screen, that is comfortable for most people is around 70cm.
The length of the average reach (without bending the back) for people in the lowest 5th%ile of stature is around 50cm.
This presents an ergonomic issue should these screens start to be used commonly.
The operator either needs to view the screen too closely, risking eye strain; or sit at an appropriate viewing distance and lean forward...bad for the lower back.
New technology is well and good, but the use of such technology by humans needs to take into account human ergonomics.
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Edited by Mark Moskvitch at 06/23/2008 7:56 PM