by Keith M (via: tuaw)

Back before the iPhone was formally announced, there was talk that Steve Jobs was simply not happy with the product because Apple’s engineers couldn’t figure out how to eliminate all of the physical buttons. There was just no practical way to put the functions of a power switch or home button into a touch-only interface. But all of that hasn’t stopped Apple from trying.

A recently-filed patent by Apple clearly shows that the company means business when it comes to sleek, clutter-free interfaces. This particular patent aims to take advantage of multiple sides of a device (in this case, it appears to be the iPad, as pictured), including parts of the casing, in order to perform functions that physical buttons currently handle.

Talk of an interactive case has come up before, but with this new patent, it’s clear the minds at Apple are still churning about in search for that holy grail of button-free, ultra-portable devices. I’m just not so sure there will be a way to get rid of them entirely — who wants to have to resort to a paperclip to reset their device?

From iPhone to multi-touch tables, the leap has now been made to a touch-sensitive floor. The researchers are presenting their work at a user interface conference in New York next month.

While multi-touch screens are becoming more and more commonplace, German researchers are now working on integrating this same technology into floors. Users would interact with the multi-touch floor by using their feet.

“When I walk across the floor with my shoes, I get a glowing, infrared imprint of my footprints,” explained Patrick Baudisch, head of the Human Computer Interaction group at the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam, Germany.

“And from that we can reconstruct where people are, and what shoes people wear because the soles are recognizable.”

The Multitoe floor would be able to identify users based on their footprints

The demonstration model of the “Multitoe” floor is about the size of a coffee table and measures about one meter by a half meter, and is raised up off the ground. The floor itself is made of a thick piece of glass, topped with a black sheet of acrylic. A camera, built-in to the floor, points up towards the ceiling.

A smart floor could show the way

According to Johannes Schoening, from the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence in Saarbruecken, a touch sensitive floor could open up a whole range of possibilities.

image: kay herschelmann

image: kay herschelmann

image: kay herschelmann

image: kay herschelmann

“The main advantage is you can sense what’s going on, on the floor,” he said “But now you have to think about so what can you do with that information. So for example if you are in the supermarket, you can provide navigational instructions.”

A Multitoe floor could be used for large scale visual applications, like maps

Other examples could include a smart-floor in a museum or an airport that shows you the way – or even a dance club where you can interact with the visuals on the floor.

Previously, the Sustainable Dance Club company in the Netherlands created a floor that generates power when people walk, jump and dance on it. It’s fitted with LED lights that can change color, but these use as little energy as possible because generating power is the priority.

Eric van Duin, an engineer with Sustainable Dance Club, said his company is excited about the potential of an interactive floor like the Multitoe – just as long as it doesn’t use too much power.

“Our touch experience is very limited, so maybe it would be very interesting to combine these technologies to enhance our dance floor”, he said.

Author: Cinnamon Nippard
Editor: Cyrus Farivar

Today HP has launched its latest Touchsmart 310 all-in-one computer today starting at an amazing $699. HP’s new TouchSmart 310 all-in-one PC sports a 2.8 GHz AMD Athlon II dual-core processor…and TouchSmart Apps.

Hewlett-Packard has taken the wraps off its latest touch-driven all-in-one consumer PC, the HP TouchSmart 310, sporting a slim 20-inch multitouch-enabled display and a new version of HP’s own TouchSmart software designed to make interacting with content even easier—especially through a new TouchSmart Apps Center that will offer new free and subscription-based applications from partners like the Cartoon Network and Marvel Comics.

“Each generation of TouchSmart is a reflection of what HP has learned from its customers, complemented by the latest technologies,” said HP senior VP James Mouton, in a statement. “The TouchSmart PC’s unique interface lets users do more than just basic computing—it acts as the anchor of one’s digital lifestyle, encouraging creativity, organization, and a truly immersive experience.”

The HP TouchSmart 310 starts at $699.99 and will go on sale from September 22nd.

In April, NEC announced plans to release a 3D all-in-one (AIO) desktop PC sometime this year.

In the all-in-one world, the MSI Wind Top 2420 3D can be considered an overachiever. Not content with merely offering a stereoscopic display, this PC is going for broke by incorporating multitouch capabilities as well.

They were probably hoping to lay claim to being the first company to bring such a product to the market but they’ve been beaten to the punch by MSI, who is set to release its Wind Top AE2420 3D AIO PC that also boasts a touchscreen and is also the first AIO PC to feature USB 3.0 ports. Sporting a 24-inch Full HD (1080p) multi-touch display comprising a 120Hz LED panel, the AE2420 3D comes with one pair of rechargeable wireless active shutter glasses and 2D to 3D conversion capabilities.

MSI’s Wind Top AE2420 3D AIO PC will be available in the U.S. from September 20 with prices starting at US$1,799.

Schematic’s giant interactive outdoor display facilitates wayfinding and social networking at the festival.

At Cannes this year, delegates will literally be the first to get their hands on a new kind of interactive out-of-home installation. The multi-touch wall from Schematic, a WPP digital company, is a 12-foot by 5-foot display that provides a visual interface for attendees to interact with the festival schedule, 3D venue maps and information on local attractions using only their hands. With the touchwall’s social networking capabilities, attendees can also set up meetings and swap contact details via email.

Multiple attendees can interact with the wall at once. To identify themselves, attendees need only to touch their festival badges to the screen—each badge is embedded with a radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag.

Check back later this week for more on user interface design and interactive marketing shop Schematic and the wall’s potential for advertisers.
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This message was sent to us from Brice Royer:

—————-

Subject: Are you going to meet Jeff Han?

Hey,

Jeff Han will be appearing in San Jose! I just read the program for Interactive Displays 2009 and I’m really excited.

You can read the full story here: (Thanks Joan for the tip!)
http://www.int-displays.com

Keynoting the conference will be Jeff Han of Perceptive Pixel and Steven Bathiche, the guy that invented Microsoft Surface. There are lots of sessions on multi-touch development and plenty of product demos too!

The conference is being held in San Jose, California on April 21st – April 23rd, 2009. If you plan to attend, you’ll have a chance to meet Jeff and Steve. It’s going to be awesome.

It would be great to meet other multi-touch developers and designers at this conference. If you are going, please leave a comment!
Talk soon,
Brice Royer
Community Organizer

After two decades when touch- and pen-based computing never broke through into mainstream use, the Apple iPhone has given PC makers another chance. HP’s new TouchSmart tx2z is the latest attempt, using features already built into Windows Vista

From our better late than never dept: HP has followed up its multi-touch desktop PC with a multi-touch convertible Tablet PC, the HP TouchSmart tx2z. This lets you manipulate onscreen objects with your fingers, as with an Apple iPhone or HTC Touch etc.

HP first started selling touch-screen PCs running MS DOS back in the early 1980s, but the TouchSmart isn’t based on HP technology. It’s based on N-trig’s DuoSense panel, which fits in front of any LCD. (DuoSense means both pen/stylus and touch/multi-touch.) Although Microsoft has said it will add multi-touch features to Windows 7, N-trig’s is designed for Vista. The company says:

Windows Vista boasts unprecedented support for pen and touch input — separately and simultaneously — making it a natural fit for N-Trig dual mode technology.
Since N-trig’s DuoSense digitizer requires only a standard HID USB driver, there’s actually no need for additional drivers to enjoy native support for pen and touch in all Windows Vista applications. However, to ensure that N-Trig users enjoy the full range of pen and touch functionality, Windows Vista includes a pre-packaged (“in the box”) native N-Trig UART driver.
In fact, our commitment to helping make Vista the OS of choice for mobile computing is such that Windows Vista also includes intelligent palm rejection algorithms developed in conjunction with N-trig.

Vista also supports pen operation and “flicks,” and includes handwriting recognition.

The TouchSmart tx2z has a 12.1 inch screen, 2.1GHz AMD Turion X2 dual-core mobile processor, 3GB of memory and a 250GB hard drive $1,149.99. Systems will be available in the UK in January, starting at £799.

Source

You may know Jeff Han, you’ve probably seen his company Perceptive Pixel’s Interactive Media Wall / Multi-touch Collaboration Wall, but the missing link to this stuff is taking it home. Well, the wait is apparently over, and for once it’s Neiman Marcus we’ve got to thank. While you’re shopping for the latest

must-have fall fashions, be sure to stop by the newly anointed Futuristic Displays That Don’t Belong at Neiman Marcus Shop to pick up your 8 x 3-foot multi-touch display for a cool $100,000 US, only ten times the price of Microsoft’s

forthcoming Surface. Don’t worry, your family will appreciate your investment; trust us, we really think they’d far prefer it to, say, Christmas presents, a home to live in, or dinner at some point in 2008.

LAS
VEGAS, January 7, 2008 – Bordeaux, France-based JazzMutant, a pioneer
developer of multi-touch sensing technology, announced today at the
International CES that it is launching an OEM business unit in response
to a growing demand for its multi-touch solutions by electronic device
manufacturers and third-party system integrators.

In addition, the company is being renamed Stantum
Technologies http://www.stantum.com,
with JazzMutant remaining the brand name of its music product division,
which includes the award-winning Lemur multi-touch surface controller
for audio and media applications and Dexter laptop-sized surface
controller for digital audio workstations.

“Since we introduced Lemur, interest in our patented
technology has increased to the point that we are now working with
leading companies in various business areas, including aerospace,
consumer electronic and medical imagery, to mention just a few,” said
Guillaume Largillier, co-founder and CEO. “It was time for JazzMutant
to evolve into Stantum Technologies.”

The new OEM business unit will provide Stantum
customers with tailor-made, integrated and cost-effective multi-touch
solutions – by way of components or licenses – that precisely fit their
individual needs, according to Largillier.

“Our aim is to become the major stakeholder of
tomorrow’s man-machine interface industry, making the way people
interact with their working tools, computers or other electronic
devices more intuitive, playful and reliable. Providing our unique
tactile screen technology to companies on an OEM basis – as a one-stop
multi-touch solution – will also significantly strengthen our market
position.”

Stantum’s technology portfolio offers true multi-touch
interfaces that let users simultaneously move an unlimited number of
fingers, nails or utensils such as styli on a screen. Fitting any
form-factor, it enables integrators to design extremely innovative
multi-touch interfaces for their own products, thus simplifying the
development process and considerably shortening the product’s
time-to-market.

The latest in the JazzMutant line is the SMK-15.4 Multi-Touch Development Kit. This new product enables you to build the ultimate in multi-touch user-interfaces.

The development kit is based on Stantum’s five year experience in the design and production of multi-touch systems.

Included in the system is a multi-touch 15.4” WXGA 1280×800 display, embedding Stantum patented scanning and filtering technology, Pmatrix high resolution multi-touch sensor, and all the drivers you could need.

JazzMutant has announced that the Multi-Touch Sensing Technology available on an OEM basis.

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