Nowadays it is very easy to see touchscreen products. But what is touch screen? Touchscreen technology is the direct manipulation type gesture based on technology. Direct manipulation is the ability to manipulate digital world inside a screen without the use of command-line-commands. A device which works on touchscreen technology is coined as Touchscreen. A touchscreen is an electronic visual display capable of ‘detecting’ and effectively ‘locating’ a touch over its display area. It is sensitive to the touch of a human finger, hand, pointed finger nail and passive objects like stylus. Users can simply move things on the screen, scroll them, make them bigger and many more.
Types of Touchscreen Technology
Let us now give an engineer’s eye to this revolutionary technology. A touchscreen is a 2 dimensional sensing device made of 2 sheets of material separated by spacers. There are four main touchscreen technologies:
A: Resistive
B: Capacitive
C: Surface Acoustic Wave
D: Infrared
Below is the 2 classic examples for the touch panel usages.
Apple iPhone: ‘Multitouch’ now is a trademark by Apple who rightly proved it with a bang with the first most successful multitouch device ever; the iPhone. The first iPhone was unveiled on January 9, 2007. iPhone is no less than a revolution in the touchscreen industry with its maestro functionalities and applications. It uses Mutual Capacitance Technology as its touchscreen. The capacitive touchscreen can only be operated by bare finger or multiple fingers for multi touch.
Microsoft Surface: is a multi touch product from Microsoft that allows multiple users to manipulate digital content through surface computing. The main feature of this product is its Surface’s interface: Direct interaction, multi-touch contact, object recognition and multi-user experience. It is not based on and limited by the conventional touch technology. The surface utilizes Frustrated Total Internal Reflection and underneath projectors for its display operation. It is indeed a milestone in the multi-touch scenario.