Intraduction

A touchscreen is an electronic visual display that can detect the presence and location of a touch within the display area. The term generally refers to touching the display of the device with a finger or hand. Touchscreens can also sense other passive objects, such as a stylus. Touchscreens are common in devices such as all-in-one computers, tablet computers, and smartphones. .

History

The first touch screen was a capacitive touch screen developed by E.A. Johnson Dr. Sam Hurst played an important role in the development of touch technologies, he neither invented the first touch sensor, nor the first touch screen. The HP-150 from 1983 was one of the world's earliest commercial touchscreen computers.

History

FingerWorks was a gesture recognition company based in the United States, known mainly for its TouchStream multi-touch keyboard Founded by John Elias and Wayne Westerman of the University of Delaware in 1998 it produced a line of multi-touch products including the iGesture Pad and the TouchStream keyboard, which were particularly helpful for people suffering from RSI and other medical conditions The keyboards were immediately discontinued when the company's assets were acquired by Apple Inc. in early 2005.

Technologies:

Resistive Touch A resistive touchscreen panel is composed of several layers, the most important of which are two thin, electrically conductive layers separated by a narrow gap. When an object, such as a finger, presses down on a point on the panel's outer surface the two metallic layers become connected at that point: the panel then behaves as a pair of voltage dividers with connected outputs this causes a change in the electrical current, which is registered as a touch event and sent to the controller for processing The cover sheet consists of a hard outer surface with a coated inner side. When the outer layer is touched it causes the conductive layers to touch creating a signal that the analog controller can interpret and determine what the user wants to be done

Technologies

Capacitive Touch A capacitive touchscreen panel consists of an insulator such as glass, coated with a transparent conductor such as indium tin oxide touching the surface of the screen results in a distortion of the screen's electrostatic field, measurable as a change in capacitance.

Construction

There are several principal ways to build a touchscreen. The key goals are to recognize one or more fingers touching a display, to interpret the command that this represents, and to communicate the command to the appropriate application. In the most popular techniques, the capacitive or resistive approach, there are typically four layers; Top polyester coated with a transparent metallic conductive coating on the bottom Adhesive spacer Glass layer coated with a transparent metallic conductive coating on the top Adhesive layer on the backside of the glass for mounting. When a user touches the surface, the system records the change in the electrical current that flows through the display. Dispersive-signal technology which 3M created in 2002, measures the piezoelectric effect the voltage generated when mechanical force is applied to a material that occurs chemically when a strengthened glass substrate is touched. There are two infrared-based approaches. In one, an array of sensors detects a finger touching or almost touching the display, thereby interrupting light beams projected over the screen. In the other, bottom-mounted infrared cameras record screen touches. In each case, the system determines the intended command based on the controls showing on the screen at the time and the location of the touch

Recent Development

Most touchscreen patents were filed during the 1970s and 1980s and have expired. Touchscreen component manufacturing and product design are no longer encumbered by royalties or legalities with regard to patents and the use of touchscreen-enabled displays is widespread. The development of multipoint touchscreens facilitated the tracking of more than one finger on the screen; thus, operations that require more than one finger are possible. These devices also allow multiple users to interact with the touchscreen simultaneously. With the growing use of touchscreens, the marginal cost of touchscreen technology is routinely absorbed into the products that incorporate it and is nearly eliminated. Touchscreens now have proven reliability. Thus, touchscreen displays are found today in airplanes, automobiles, gaming consoles, machine control systems, appliances, and handheld display devices including the Nintendo DS and the later multi-touch enabled iPhones; the touchscreen market for mobile devices is projected to produce US$5 billion in 2009

Iphone Capacitive Touch

Resistive Touch