Thin Film Transforms Any Surface Into Touchscreen 81
kkleiner writes "Open up a cardboard tube, roll out a transparent film just millimeters thick, apply it on a flat object and *tada* you've got an interactive touch surface. Cambridge-based Visual Planet just launched its new massive-sized multitouch thin film drivers so you can create touchscreens from 30 to 167 inches in size! Their touchfoil is a transparent nanowire embedded polymer capable of sensing the touch of a finger, or even pressure from wind and translating that to a computer interface. It works on glass, wood, and other non-conductive surfaces."
good (Score:1)
I am so sick of that thin film touchscreen on glass (or other non conductive material) technology we have now
Millimeters thick? (Score:1)
I would imagine any film above 1mm in thickness would be pretty hard to roll up into anything resembling a reasonable diameter.
Re: (Score:2)
30 to 167 inches. I guess it means like the dash of your car.
I hope they release solid drivers for the stuff too eh eh
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Millimeters thick? (Score:4)
Um, last I checked a millimeter is pretty small. I can roll up all sorts of things to a reasonably thin degree which are much thicker than that(including one of those schnazzy silicone gel keyboard things).
It's a transparent flexible touch surface...and you're complaining because it's as thick as card stock?
Re: (Score:2)
Um, last I checked a millimeter is pretty small. I can roll up all sorts of things to a reasonably thin degree which are much thicker than that(including one of those schnazzy silicone gel keyboard things).
It's a transparent flexible touch surface...and you're complaining because it's as thick as card stock?
Even 0.5mm overhead projector film is pretty hard stuff, silicon gel is very low density compared to plastic films as is card. I would expect a rolled diameter to be around 25-30cm which is fine for the 167", but a bit much for the small 30" versions.
Re: (Score:2)
It might be thin or thick or whatever you want but it ain't a 'thin film'
"A thin film is a layer of material ranging from fractions of a nanometer (monolayer) to several micrometers in thickness. "
WP
millimeters, eh? (Score:2, Insightful)
don't you think that's rather thick?
Massage (Score:1)
Call me back when you can roll it out on a non-flat girl's back, play a video game for a half hour or an hour, and have her believe you just gave her a massage...
Re:Massage (Score:4, Funny)
Depends on the game, and the girl.
Re: (Score:1)
and they say romance is dead.
Re:Massage (Score:4, Informative)
FYI, the interesting topography is supposed to be on the other side.
Also, you can't give a good massage with just light touching with your fingertips.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Call me back when you can roll it out on a non-flat girl's back, play a video game for a half hour or an hour, and have her believe you just gave her a massage...
If it'll fit a 167 inch widescreen I'm sure it'll fit your girlfriend too... :)
- Sorry, but you had that one coming
Re: (Score:1)
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_hN7X5gUktas/TARzweGSccI/AAAAAAAABpc/WVUmn6QuQwE/s1600/ControllerT-Shirt.jpg [blogspot.com]
I got an idea... (Score:2)
Put it on women's bras for the ultimate "touchscreen interface".
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
I find your ideas intriguing and would like to discuss them with your girlfriend...or mother...
FTFY.
Where are my icons? (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Prices anyone? (Score:2)
Developer on a HDTV? Please!!!!! (Score:2)
It annoys me that people think HDTV is good. In fact as far as DPI resolution goes, they're pretty much in the suckage range. My 5-6 year old Dell laptop has a 1920x1200 resolution 17" monitor.
... and btw: How do you sit two TVs next to each other. Really, what developer only uses one monitor nowadays?
Re: (Score:2)
Now what's really good about my hdtv is that I already own it. Is dpi everything? No, i have an n900 woth a 3.5" display at 800x600, is that going to be iseful for development?
What annoys me are people who can't read then go on rants and just as
Re: (Score:2)
N900's 800x480, actually...
Thyat being said, I *do* use it for development, at least tweaking bits of code on the fly with VIM.
But I, for one, would *love* a 200-dpi(N900 is ~230, regular monitor ~100), 20' or so monitor, because it would mean you could use anti-alised fonts and such without it looking blurry and odd. It'd also reduce the need for AA in games, though the total number of rendered pixels would make up for that.
Posted from my N900. :P
Re: (Score:2)
what i would relove are lisp bindings for android on my tablet.I haven't been able to get anything done since my laptop died.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
A polymer, which has nanowires embedded within it? Doesn't sound *that* complicated...
Android Skin (Score:1)
When can we use that as a skin for robotic humanoids?
Thin Film Transforms Any SCREEN Into Touchscreen (Score:2)
You cannot transform anything into a touchscreen, if it's not a screen!
You insensitive clod!!!
Re: (Score:1)
Fortunately.. pretty much any physical object is a screen. Some are better at it than others, to be sure.
Re: (Score:1)
I wonder how can you display, say, your favorite holiday pictures on a cardboard box and then have it the touch stuff to zoom that in and out ... ... the real glassy ones I mean.
Or how can you do the same on a window
No, you can only transform screens (in the sense of "device to display pictures and text") into touchscreens.
Re: (Score:1)
Well, it's a two-step process, and here they are only describing step 2.
Other folks are indeed working on step 1, though.
Re: (Score:1)
Neat, indeed!
There's also step no.3 to have anything transmitting on GSM/3G and step no.4 to make anything an iPhone.
Waiting for it... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Mod parent up!
Of course, I prefer restive(at least, the one in my N900 is great).
And with this... (Score:1)
Porn will never be the same!
Touch me here.
Re: (Score:1)
iSlut!
I seem to recall .... (Score:4, Insightful)
They were great out on the shop floor. Some of the mechanics were in the habit of using (pointy, sharp) tools to tap touch screens. So anything that could be peeled off and replaced without having to scrap an entire CRT was great. Yeah, CRT. Get over it, kid. And get off my lawn!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe a hundred bucks or so to do a 12 or 14 inch monitor. No big deal.
Hehe, no "big" deal indeed. Now try that with a 14 foot display (~167 inch, the upper end of this stuff's range).
For certain values of "thin" (Score:1)
I'm just a simple rural engineer, but round these parts we tend to use "thin" to imply something of negligible thickness, not several milla-meters like you fancy city folk.
And like the 3M film.... (Score:2)
It will be obscenely expensive...
I have been trying to get something in the reasonable price range to make a 42" touchscreen for a while now. all of it is in anal raping price ranges.
Great component if the price is right (Score:2)
This looks like a great component for lots of hobby projects if it is cheap enough for the purpose. If I could get a single touch that I could make an Arduino interface for at less than $30 I can think of a dozen one-of projects right now. Great science / maker faire signs, wall art, board games, etc.. At $300 they won't sell many. Anyone know the price?
Robot skin (Score:1)
sounds like it would make great robot skin
Without a screen underneath? (Score:1)
Without some sort of screen/display underneath, how will you know where the 'buttons'/areas are that you want to touch? Unless those buttons/controls are static and constant, in which case physical buttons/switches are probably a better solution.
And just how transparent is this film? I'd love nothing more than to turn my 42" plasma panel in my living room into a touch panel (just for coolness factor if nothing else) but will I still be able to enjoy watching movies with this film stuck to my TV? Unless t
This is an INPUT device (Score:3)
If this was a DISPLAY that thin, then this would be groundbreaking.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
If this was a DISPLAY that thin, then this would be groundbreaking.
Where have you been? From WP:
In May 2007, Sony publicly unveiled a video of a 2.5-inch flexible OLED screen which is only 0.3 millimeters thick.[102] At the Display 2008 exhibition, Sony demonstrated a 0.2 mm thick 3.5 inch display with a resolution of 320×200 pixels and a 0.3 mm thick 11 inch display with 960×540 pixels resolution, one-tenth the thickness of the XEL-1.[103][104]
Best use for large touch sensitive film? (Score:1)
Apply to large square of plastic.
Add small micro-controller, a couple of switches, and some minor programming.
Sell as "DanceDance DoorLock".
Profit!!!
Re: (Score:2)
Easily prevented via some hardware and software. Don't use a separate telephone-style keypad for the PIN entry - display it on the touchscreen. Randomly scramble the digits in the keypad before each digit is entered and cover the screen with a privacy film so that it has a relatively small viewing angle.
Isn't this old news? (Score:2)
Perhaps they didn't use nanotechnology, but it worked fine, so who cares what the underlying tech is?
And it was certainly not "milimeters" thick. More like 1/4 of a milimeter.
- Jesper
Just in time for Windows 8 (Score:1)
Now that Microsoft is trying to turn PCs into smart phones, everyone's going to need this to retrofit their monitors to make the UI usable, since it's completely unusable with a mouse and KB.
So my touchescreen is my 60 inch? (Score:2)
Does this work on any surface? I guess it would have to be a solid based surface , not a projector screen where you can actually foucs in and out the image, and change the x and y position by doing so?
There are two kinds of people in the world (Score:2)
Those who touch the screen and leave fingerprints all over it, and those of us who break those people's fingers.
mark "that's why there are keyboards!"