Talk:Multi-touch interface

Outline

This is an outline that John Fischer, Anderson Osagie, and Jayvin Arora are developing to construct this article.Jayvin Arora 21:23, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

0. Introduction/Summary

1. Technology: How is it accomplished/implemented

2. History of touch technology ( single touch, ... )

    http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-20008369-56.html?tag=mncol;mlt_related

3. Legal issues in Multi-Touch

    http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/the-multi-touch-patent-game-who-was-first/2411
    http://androidcommunity.com/forums/f10/apple-does-not-own-multi-touch-legal-impossibility-5550/
    http://www.wired.com/gadgets/miscellaneous/news/2008/02/multitouch_patents
    http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2007/0262964.html
    http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/apples-htc-lawsuit-is-it-biting-off-more-than-it-can-sue/31565
    http://www.google.com/patents?id=dB4EAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4#v=onepage&q&f=false
    http://news.cnet.com/8301-31021_3-20001424-260.html

4. Multi-Touch current implementations in different sectors.

5. How to develop apps for it. Basic framework, and things to keep in mind.

   a. Frameworks available (Java MT4j)

6. The Future of Multi-Touch

   a. Emerging Technologies
   b. Future Trends & Applications
   c. Pop-Culture/Movie Sightings

7. Shortcomings of the Multi-Touch (cons) (Ex: No Keyboard for feel, no mouse, etc...)

    a. Possible alternatives to MT that address flaws/problems.

8. References

Very nice.

I look forward to the article.

Interesting human factors can arise. Some years ago, I worked with an experimental high-resolution system for pathological examinations. We used a high-resolution touch screen.

For some reasons, physicians, who were very supportive of the project, were very reluctant to use the touch screen. Eventually, we found the problem: it was sufficiently photo-realistic that the tissue samples looked real to them, and subconsciously triggered their conditioning about ever touching tissue with bare hands. Once we gave them a light pen (or let them put on rubber gloves), it became user-friendly.

Howard C. Berkowitz 05:35, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Nominated for NDOTW

I've nominated it for CZ: New Draft of the Week. --Howard C. Berkowitz 21:22, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Biometrics

It occurred to me that multitouch could provide some very interesting applications for biometric recognition and authentication, and probably some privacy concerns as well. There has been some recent research into using keystrokes when typing as a biometric identifier (ref http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/04/keystroke_biome.html) that I'm sure could be extrapolated and applied to multitouch. You could probably gauge some unique biometrics from multitouch as well, such as body dimensions based on touch points, etc.

Justin C. Klein Keane 13:03, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

While I wish I remembered the source -- probably Security Executive or CSO magazines -- there's a very interesting biometric device that uses both human pattern recognition and multitouch. The display presents nine human faces, in randomized positions. The user will recognize some subset of them, and touch those. Even more challenging, different pictures of the same people can be used. Howard C. Berkowitz 01:29, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Minority Report question

Was that really multi-touch that Tom Cruise used in Minority Report? I thought he was just gesturing 3D in the air using some kind of magnetic gloves or something, that had nothing to do with touching a flat surface. Since there was no "touching", I'm not sure what this has to do with multi-touch interfaces, which detect points of touching and directional movements for the points of touch. Please clarify why this reference belongs here (if it does).Pat Palmer 08:56, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

The reason this is included in here is because notice the similarities to multi-touch. Tom Cruise was interfacing with a computer using multiple hands, a number of different gestures, etc. This is exactly how we interact with multi-touch today except we are forced to touch. Also, according to Steven Spielberg, this technology from the movie resulted from a consult with Microsoft (one of those technology consultants went on to help design Microsoft Surface) and look at the similarities to Microsoft Surface. Also note that IR cameras (like in the Wiimote) allow you to interact with "multi-touch" with an LED light (Wiimote Whiteboard). This is exactly how the surface in Minority Report reacted, they did not use magnets, but rather, gloves with LED (or some other type) lights. Just because the surface was not flat and because there was no direct touching does not make the appearance of the technology irrelevant to the public introduction to multi-touch (this is exactly where I remember being introduced to multi-touch), note my future section in the presentation I mention touch-less "multi-touch." John Fischer 11:24, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Very interesting. This could go in the article IMO.Pat Palmer 01:06, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Intro

The article is coming along beautifully. I wonder if, directly after the opening sentence, it might be useful to frame the coming article by stating that, after decades of preliminary research, multi-touch interfaces burst upon the commercial scene starting with Apple's iPod in 200x?, and MTT has now become the de facto standard to reach for in mobile devices. Of something like that. Then maybe a paragraph break, followed by the technical introduction.Pat Palmer 00:33, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Hey, I like it!Pat Palmer 00:33, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

overall comments

This is a great beginning. The article as it stands today covers a lot of ground, and I especially appreciate the DOI's in the references, plus the sections on programming MTT and legal issues, which are very nice. The article might also benefit from additional development; some ideas for this are detailed in the following subsections (to be added shortly):Pat Palmer 13:31, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

history section

This is a tough call, but after reading it and the Wikipedia version, and also Bill Buxton's article, I recommend boiling the history down to a much shorter section that explains how development of various technologies went on from the 1970's forward by a number of research groups, companies, etc. And then I would use Buxton as an External Link for people wanting to explore the history. As it stands, the history section is not complete; for example, I remember seeing (and using) a number of those LED-grid type touch screen terminals in Bell Labs during the 1980's; this history omits those, and Bill Buxton's article mentions them briefly in passing. Further, some of the devices in the history are not really touch devices, which I find odd. Rather than have an incomplete, and possibly inaccurate history, I would summarize and punt.Pat Palmer 13:38, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

market share

Despite several statements about iPhone's impact (and we all know it to be so), there are no actual market statistics for iPhone, for Microsoft Surface, or for Android and other MTT devices. Some real numbers would help this be a convincing argument; without numbers, it's more like opinion.Pat Palmer 13:40, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

how it works

Near the end of this section, and after listing four technologies, there is this statement: "Here, I will only discuss capacitive and resistive which are the types of technology used in mobile phones." First off, there is no "I" in a wiki; better to say "this article will cover...". But the main point is, maybe we can make placeholder sections for all four technologies, and let someone else fill them in later. This choosing of phones over all other options actually made me smile (it's a young-old kind of prejudice, maybe).Pat Palmer 13:49, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Microsoft Surface, and all the tablet PC's throughout the 2000's

Although Surface, and Microsoft-based tablet PC's, were commercially available (and did have a viable market) throughout the mid and late 2000's, they are treated in this article more as an after-thought. Though they didn't have the same market explosion as iPhones, they do employ a highly-related touch technology, and they came first, so I feel there is a kind of imbalance in the treatment (not just here, but overall in these survey types of articles) that is unfortunate. If we're going to do that, let's at least justify it with market stats.Pat Palmer 13:49, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Capacitive Touch Screens section

The essential information that this particular type of screen does not work on gloved hands is at the very bottom. I would move it to the top of the section. In fact, I would like to see this section organized more like the following section (Resistive Touch Screens), which starts right out with a list of advantages and disadvantages of that technology. Also, the class presentation included some graphics for how these work that would be nice here. Presumably, there was no time to seek permission for their use, but making our own versions might be useful in the future.Pat Palmer 13:55, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Education section, under Future of MT

IMO, we might want to temper the enthusiasm expressed here by finding out what the power consumption would be. It would, in fact, be very interested to try and understand the overall environmental impact, including waste disposal when gadgets die, of a computerized screen vs. white boards vs. chalk boards over, say, a twenty-year span. I'm no so sure that the touch screen would win, because there would be power used, plus pollution from manufacturing the devices, plus pollution from (one day) disposing of the device's now-dead materials.Pat Palmer 14:06, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Health Care section, under Future of MT

Just wondering if there is any advantage of a smooth multi-touch screen, in terms of hygiene--being able to clean off germs--as compared with a keyboard and mouse (which are really not at all easy to sterilize). Is this a factor in their adoption?Pat Palmer 14:06, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Pop Culture References to MTT

I would like to see this section absorbed into the introduction, and the heading "go away", because it is identical to the last section of the corresponding Wikipedia article--and CZ should be careful, IMO, not to be seen as imitating or repeating work already done in Wikipedia. The intro could say, just for example, that people have grew accustomed to seeing MTT in films and on television even before tablet PC's and iPhones made the technology available to the masses.Pat Palmer 14:06, 17 August 2010 (UTC)