PC Magazine introduces seven interesting future technologies. Among them, four candidates roughly show the future of touch interfaces and technologies.
Microsoft Lucid Touch
Lucid Touch is an interface featuring backside touch. Although the concept has been suggested by many UI researchers, Lucid Touch differentiates itself from others by adopting a pseudo-transparent display. So, users can see their fingers through the screen.
What touch technology is needed to commercialize Lucid Touch? Technical specifications might consist of two parts. One is a transparent display and the other is double-sided touch panels. So, the final product would be a transparent double-sided multitouch screen.
MIT Media Labs Graspable
Graspable is originally known as Bar of Soap, which is a prototype handheld device that knows how you hold the device and adapt its functions accordingly.
As shown in the figure below, if you hold it like a phone, then it works as a phone. If you grab it like a camera, then it becomes a camera.
For touch industry, it envisons an era that touch is not just confined within a fixed area. The whole surfaces of the device are touch sensitive. In the future, there will be new type of suppliers who provide touch sensitive housings.
Interested readers may check Apple's patent (2006) and Samsung's paper (2006) illustrating similiar but earlier works.
The 256-Processor Laptop and The Morphing Mobile Gadget
Although those two fall into different technologies, their requirements for touch technologies are almost same - flexible touch screens.
Now, do you catch some idea to improve your products?
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