Touch screen technology is already part of our present and has revolutionized the working and utilization of devices used for communication and information storage like smart phone, laptops, i-pads etc. Touch screens can bring a world of information and services at the touch of a finger. One of the greatest benefits of touch screens is the intuitive interaction between user and device. For this reason manufacturers around the world are committing to touch technology. Touching a device is becoming the new
normal. The next generation often expects a device to work by touching or swiping the screen. Soon touch screen technology is the way we operate not only our smart phone but our cars and fridge too. We see more and more touch screen interfaces in car dash boards. Home thermostats and appliances use touch panels and smart watches pop up at warp speed. The touch screen interface is becoming crucial for interacting with Internet of Things (IoT) data and for using this data to our advantage. It is no exaggeration to mention that touch screen technology will 100% be a part of our future. Some unique advantages being offered by touch screen technology are as:
Speed: Touch screens help us operate any device faster.
Ease of Use: It has been proven that touch screens are intuitive in use.
Everyone’s an Expert in Touch: Pointing at something we want is an instinctive gesture. That is why touch screens have always been labeled as being intuitive. Using a touch screen is as simple as pointing at the right location.
Device size: One of the biggest benefits of touch screens is the fact they are usually all-in-one solutions and helps save valuable space.
Accessibility: Touch screens can also be of incredible value when accommodating users with physical limitations.
Durability + Easy to Clean: Different touch screen technologies offer different protective features. In general touch screens benefit from a durable quality. They are made of glass or a similar hard-coated surface which makes them easy to clean.
Cost Reduction: Using touch screen interface increases accuracy and reduces time to get used to the equipment. This will improve efficiency and will eventually keep costs down.
Touch screen technology is certainly being developed, so it’s only a matter of time before touch screens make their way into more everyday products and activities. With the increased functionality of these new advances, touch screens can improve the quality of many common products. We not only believe in the benefits of touch screens to consumers, but also to industrial applications. As this technology is becoming standard and intuitive for next generations, it almost forces manufacturers to integrate their products with a touch interface. The touch screen won’t be replaced in phones with another technology very soon. It offers almost everything we need from an interface, as what we see is what we get and what we can do. The best improvements that might be coming up for that would be resizable interfaces, allowing to use “one” device in different sizes, e.g. by combining two devices, or pulling out “more screen”. Other types of “no interface” or gesture interface improvements, including voice control, will be slowly improving. These are very difficult to implement well, as they are based on ambiguous input methods. Learning and remembering these gestures is very difficult, as is implementing them to have enough tolerance for different types of bodies, etc.
Advances in touch screen technology
Many upcoming advances may make touch screens even easier to use, and thus even more common in devices we use every day. These advances are highlighted as:
Tactile feedback: Perhaps the biggest detriment to touch screens in the past was that users had to constantly look at what they were pushing to be accurate. This is much of the reason many people will prefer a regular keyboard over a touch screen. The grooves of the keyboard allow the user to feel where each key is without taking a glance down. However, this is no longer the case. Now touch screen products can provide tactile feedback, and soon we won’t have to rely on visual cues from our phone or computer. A technology that uses electrical currents to simulate sensations of touch can be enabled on the front and back of phones so the sensations reach the fingertips and the palm. Another technology uses electro-vibration to produce varying levels of friction against the finger to provide rich and immediate physical feedback. Users can determine various sizes of files when dragging them across the screen by the amount of friction the user receives. This technology will be able to differentiate touches and change the overall user experience. Soon, tactile feedback on touch screens will be able to differentiate textures and simulate actual computer or phone keyboards to show the difference from one key to another. Tactile feedback will have a major benefit for touch screens on dashboards and consoles inside automobiles. Users will be able to provide input on touch screens in the car without taking their eyes off the road.
Sensitive to pressure: Some touch screens offer pressure-sensitive technology now. However, they aren’t very accurate due to the fact that they measure pressure by surface area. But, this is not a true indication of pressure, something that could be on the horizon in touch screens. Using force-sensing resistors and piezoelectric actuators behind an LCD touch screen, is bringing this closer to reality. Using different amounts of pressure to manipulate the screen not only would require fewer buttons; it also would provide increased control on every screen. On a computer or e-reader, for example, this technology would allow a user to scroll down a page faster by pushing a little harder. On a music player, users could browse through songs faster or slower depending on pressure.
Hover detection: Perhaps with an extension of the pressure-sensitive LCD, eventually users may not even have to make contact with a touch screen. Companies have unveiled hover detection demonstrations. These screens would react when the panel is touched as well as gauge how near or far away a finger is from the surface. This so called “mouse-over” function will make touch screen technology seem almost magical. It would also increase usability. Certainly there would be a time and place for this function, as users wouldn’t want it reacting simply because they happen to be near the screen. But much like a mouse arrow hovering over an icon, holding a finger over a link could open up a pop-up or small preview of that page. If users want to enter that link, then they could simply move their finger down slightly and press the screen.
Infrared: Infrared light detection can be used in light induced shape memory. The technology uses the varying wavelengths to change the topography layer, enabling it to expand, contract, or feel rough or smooth.
Dual screen: Products with touch screen capabilities also often offer the technology on dual screens where Web pages can flow from one screen to another. It also uses gesture memory to track movements to open Web sites or apps when it recognizes the movement. This dual touch screen technology is also being seen in mobile devices which have the versatility to run as a tablet, two separate screens, or two complimenting screens.
Next of technology
Researchers believe that mobile computers are still being held back by the limitations of existing control methods, without which they could become even more powerful. Productive input and interaction on mobile devices is, however, still challenging due to the trade-offs we have to make regarding a device’s form factor and input capacity. Besides, further developments in touch screen technology like a touch screen that recognizes different people’s fingers and in another effort, a way for devices to recognize the swipes and presses of particular people, researchers are interested to move further.
Gesture control devices: recognize different people and tricks to make a screen feel as if it has physical buttons could be coming to electronic gadgets. In a few short years, the technologies found in today’s mobile devices-touch screens, gyroscopes, and voice-control software, to name a few-have radically transformed how we access computers. To glimpse what new ideas might have a similar impact in the next few years; researchers demonstrated new ideas for computer interaction. Many were focused on taking mobile devices in directions that today feel strange and new but could before long be as normal as swiping the screen. We see new hardware, like devices activated by tongue movement or muscle-flexing, or prototypes that build on technology we already have in our hands. One of the most eye-catching and potentially promising ideas was to perform complex tasks with a flick of the wrist or a snap of the fingers. The interface, called Digits, is worn around the wrist and consists of a motion sensor and an infrared light source and camera. Digits can follow arm and finger movements with enough accuracy to replicate them on screen or allow control of a complex computer game. “Further, it can be extended to smaller devices that could be worn like a watch that allows users to communicate with their surroundings and personal computing devices with simple hand gestures.
Next-gen no-touch screens: Next generation technology will enable ‘no-touch’ phones, tablets and televisions that can be operated from afar, without the need to swipe them. The technology will allow users to control a screen with their fingers even from the other side of the room and put their hands through a screen to ‘touch’ objects. New screens will be able to manipulate without needing to approach a gadget. The company is building an electronic bracelet that can detect movements in a person’s fingers, allowing them to imitate the actions of poking and flicking the screen to operate a device. The bracelet would allow people to operate a television despite having their back turned or control a mobile phone with their hands in their pockets. This device operates by surrounding a screen with cameras that can detect the user and their movements, matching them to on-screen items. Final versions of these displays will be ready in two to five years. Key to this ability is a completely new mechanism for recognizing touch. The current generation of capacitive touch screens recognizes points of contact by scanning along the X and Y axes of the screen. The new screen instead acts like a camera sensor and builds an image of all the electrically conductive objects (such as fingertips) within the screen’s sensing region at any given moment. The real advantage comes from the new finger-recognition method, which should allow for a greater level of sensitivity and nimbleness with existing multi touch applications-especially those requiring quick presses of multiple virtual “buttons,” and anything involving a virtual keyboard.
Author
Dr. S. S. Verma, Department of Physics, S.L.I.E.T., Longowal, Distt.-Sangrur (Punjab)-148106
