Your iPad can detect very fine touches thanks to the use of capacitive touch panels, but it still can’t do a great job of telling how hard you’re pressing (unless you hit the gadget hard enough to trigger the accelerometer). A new patent application by Apple spotted by AppleInsider today details a method for detecting force, using infrared transmitters. The tech involved is called… Read More
Volvo is a car company that has built its reputation around on safety for the most part. The company is talking a bit about its new in-car experience and that experience revolves around a big touchscreen. I happen to think this is a bad idea for safety.
While touchscreens look cool and modern, anyone who has driven in a vehicle where the physical buttons have been replaced with touch will tell you that touch is not as easy to use while driving as old-fashioned buttons and knobs. With a touch system, you have to take your eyes off the road and look at what you are pressing.
Stealing a page from Tesla, Volvo is using a big tablet-like touchscreen in the center console to replace the buttons and switches we are used to. The screen is in portrait mode and each section has its own theme with navigation at the top. While the new UI certainly makes for a clean look, usability might suffer.
Perhaps Volvo has figured out how to make its system easy to use without constantly looking at it, we will have to wait and see.
With tablets and trackpad-based laptops slowly taking over the world, using an actually old-fashioned mouse seems to be becoming a niche passion for an increasingly small but devoted few. Maybe the mouse shouldjust die already, but I can’t be only one who just can’t give it up.
There are already devices that transmit sound to your body without speakers. But what if your body was the speaker? Disney Research has just explored that possibility through its Ishin-Den-Shin project. The experiment amplifies mic input and sends it back as a high voltage, low current signal that turns objects (including humans) into electrostatic audio sources that can’t be heard over the air. Touch someone’s ear while holding the mic, for example, and you’ll deliver a private broadcast. Disney hasn’t said if will build Ishin-Den-Shin into any products, but the technology is simpler than what we’ve seen in electrostatic speakers or headphones; don’t be surprised if it pops up elsewhere.
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
We’ve seen most of Logitech’s latest products by way of press shots, but the company was clearly waiting for IFA to trot out the real deals. We caught the peripheral maker as it was in the process of setting of its booth for the show and got a quick tour of what it’s working on. First up, the company’s giving a little folio love to Android tablet owners, releasing a keyboard case for the Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 and protective cases for the 10.1, 8.0 and 7.0. We also got a chance to check out that beefy G602 wireless gaming mouse, which’ll give you around 250 hours of gaming on a charge. Speaking of mice, the Ultrathin Touch Mouse is a pretty nice looking peripheral — one that pairs pretty nicely with its TK820 keyboard. Images below and press info for all of the above after the break. %Gallery-slideshow79677%
Follow all of our IFA 2013 coverage by heading to our event hub!
We marveled at how the Microsoft Surface’s Touch Cover could fit a full keyboard into such a thin space, but it has nothing on a new membrane from CSR. The peripheral combines printed circuitry with a Bluetooth 4.0 chip, producing a flexible, nearly paper-thin (0.5mm) touch layer that can talk wirelessly to most mobile devices and accessories. It should also be highly responsive with less than 12ms of lag. CSR suggests the skin could be used for more than just tablet keyboard covers; it could equally apply to smart paper notebooks and interactive desks. The company hasn’t named any customers for the membrane, but we should see more of it at IFA.
Many portable mice are fairly chunky, which can be tricky when you’ve got a slim bag packed with an Ultrabook or a MacBook Air. Logitech’s set out to solve this problem with its $70 Ultrathin Touch mouse. The aluminum-clad pointing device features an ultra-svelte wedge design with a smooth top for touch gestures. A flick of a switch on the mouse lets you switch between two Bluetooth-connected devices and a one-minute charge over USB gives it enough juice to last about one hour. The Ultrathin Touch Mouse will arrive in black this September and in white come November.
We’ve seen touch-friendly tables before, but they’re rarely so slick as the Multi Surface Experience, a newly launched collaboration between design firm Gensler and ad agency The Hive. The installation lets guests explore Gensler’s architectural portfolio (the book you see above) just by walking up to a wavy table. An overhead projector, Kinect for Windows and special software present an interface wherever people stand; when users choose to learn more about a project, it pops up on a wall-mounted 4K display. The current experience is sadly confined to Gensler’s Los Angeles office, but it’s also the start of teamwork that could lead to commercial designs. Don’t be surprised if company lobbies are much livelier in the future.
Motion-based PC interfaces are all the rage, thanks to Microsoft’s Kinect and the folks at Leap Motion. San Francisco-based Haptix is sure it’s got a better solution than the rest, but it needs a healthy $100,000 to get there. The company’s got a Kickstarter page going for its self-titled peripheral that can be clipped to a device or placed on a table to offer up both a 3D sensing layer in the air and a multi-touch layer on a flat surface. The dual layers give you more ways to interact with your device, and a chance to rest your palm on the table, when the whole reaching out thing proves too tiring. In the Kickstarter pitch video below, you’ll also see a Haptix picking up brushstrokes, which could certainly have some cool implications for artists.
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