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Thursday 6 December 2012

Touch Screen Evolution



Touch screen software was initially used in kiosk systems, POS terminals, ATM's and on PDA's. With raising popularity of smart phones, modern PDA's, GPS's and portable game consoles, the demand for touch-screen technologies slowly increased. Early touch-screen displays could only sense a single point of input at a time and only a few of them were capable of detecting the strength of the pressure.

This was changed with Apples ongoing commercialization of the multi-touch technology with iPhone and iPod touch. Multi-touch allows the user to interact with the screen with fingers, instead of a stylus. The movement of fingers creates gestures, which are then sent to the touch screen software. Popularity of iPhone, has brought touch-screen technology to many smart phones and hand-held devices.

Many companies have upgraded their products, either by adding a multi/touch support to the track-pad or by making their Tablet PC's interact-able without the stylus. Some companies specialize in production of large wall-mounted or table surfaces. Most notable are Microsoft's Surface and Perceptive Pixel's Multi-Touch Collaboration Wall.

Both wall mounted and table mounted displays have had a few ergonomic problems. "Gorilla arm" was a side effect that destroyed wall mounted touch-screen as a mainstream. Developers of touch-screen systems, failed to notice, that humans are not built to hold their arms high for a long period of time, making small and precise motions at the same time. Table mounted displays do not share this problem, however, users can develop neck pain after using it for a period of time and their view is obstructed by their arms.

Limited one-finger touch-screen capability has been available before, but Windows 7 is the first to deliver multi-touch. You can zoom in by placing your fingers on the screen and spread them apart.

This is how touch screen has come into limelight. And in current days you can easily observe how people has gone crazy for touch screen mobiles, tablets etc in their day to day accessories.

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