Archive for: touchscreen
It’s that time of year again – cold and crappy. But when it is being stupid outside is that supposed to mean we can’t use our touchscreen devices? Can I not roam around tapping and swiping bare fisted waiting for frostbite to settle in? I could and actually always have – until this year. I was asked to give the new round of Agloves a test for this Holiday Season and since I have nothing but touchscreen devices littering my house, I thought it was a great time to give the gloves a try.
We’ve reviewed the Agloves in the past, but here we are a year later, and with new styles being offered, can they still impress us? Jump past the break to find out…
One of the biggest complaints we still here from people concerning the differences between traditional physical keyboards (on phones) and touchscreen devices is the lack of any real “feel”. In the last couple of years, manufacturers have played with varying degrees of haptic feed back (read: vibration) to mimic the click of a button, but it is gimmicky at best. However, a new display technology being shown off by Japanese carrier KDDI and developed by Kyocera claims to change the way in which we think about touchscreens and haptic feedback.
For now, the display is still in prototype stages as Kyocera wants to add multi-touch functionality as well as trim size down a bit. But when they’re ready, we’ll be gifted with quite a treat. Imagine being able to have screen “push” back with multiple different sensations or intensities based on whether you’re tapping on a letter or soft button. That’s precisely what Kyocera is doing here, and if perfected, will usher in a new era of touchscreen devices.
Hop on past the break for a live demo of said technology in action…
One of the most infamous fast foods restaurants of the modern world is in the process of making a big change to the way in which its customers order food. Many of the 7,000+ European McDonalds will soon see cashiers replaced with customer-operated touchscreen terminals and credit card swiping machines in an effort to make ordering food faster and more convenient. Such methods of ordering have been tested here and there throughout the last decade. This latest rollout, however, is to our knowledge one of the largest scale experiments/deployments of said technology yet.
Do you think such an ordering process is more to your liking, or do you still want some face-to-face interaction?
Researchers from the Kajimoto Laboratory at the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo, Japan have gone ahead and created the future — tactile touchscreens! Long a subject of science fiction movies, truly tactile touchscreens are perhaps the current pinnacle achievement sought after by consumer electronics junkies. And thanks to the Kajimodo researchers, we’re one step closer.
Their new touchscreen tech relies on a thin layer of gen located behind the main screen providing the real “feeling” of tactile feedback. We’re certainly intrigued. And we’re pretty sure you will be too after watching the accompanying video after the jump…
It’s no secret that RIM’s previous touchscreen attempts with the Storm line of phones wasn’t all that successful. Over the last several weeks, leaks of upcoming qwerty + touchscreen enabled BlackBerries piqued our interest as it’s something we (as long as numerous BlackBerry loyalists) have been asking for for years. Finally, it appears RIM Is ready to deliver with the BlackBerry Touch and BlackBerry Bold Montana.
The accompanying video (after the jump) shows your normal looking Bold 9780-ish BlackBerry sportin’ a more finger-friendly screen. In our opinion, the keyboard + touchscreen is the best combo, especially for a company such as RIM whose existence was established because of their fantastic hardware keyboards. With that said, hop on past the break for 24 seconds of whiz bang excitement…
Microsoft announced tonight via the company website that they and Toyota will host a joint press conference tomorrow to unveil something new and exciting. No idea what they’re going to announce. It could be some fancy new in-car computer system. Or… it could be the revealing of a new Toyota Scion Windows Phone 7 theme…
- February 15, 2011 9:06 am
At least that is what we are hoping! Rumor has it that Apple will be expanding its unanounced iPhone 5 screen to a massive 4 inches. When you consider the size of most smartphones around today, this doesn’t seem too large. But for Apple, 4 years might be the mark to get a touchscreen implant. For me, size is everything! I use my iPhone as way more than a phone, and the screen size has always saddened me. I never minded it with my older models, but once I upgraded to the the iPhone 4 – the screen was disapointing. That was probably the only complaint I had.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to be walking around with an iPad stuck to the size of my face, but I’d like to some meat on my plate. I want to be able to enjoy the stuff I watch on the device. I don’t want to double finger and spread (zoom) every time I need to see something. I little bit more screen will go a long way for Apple. I really feel this will be a clean jab at the Android scene…
Mobile gaming junkies got a bombshell on Thursday, for Sony revealed their PSP2 at an event in Tokoyo. Officially however, the new device is going by “Next Generation Portable” or NGP for short. (We like the former better.) Ushering in the next generation of mobile gaming will be an ARM Cortex A9 processor + SGX543MP4+ GPU, 5″ OLED touchscreen display with 4x the resolution of the current PSP, dual micro-joysticks, touchpads and cameras on both front and rear, and various wireless technologies including WiFi/3G/Bluetooth. But the biggest news concerning the NGP are the reported “PS3 quality graphics”. That is certainly a high bar to raise for such a small device, a mere tablet even.
Outside of hardware, Sony unveiled a new “Playstation Suite” that will eventually allow Sony games to play on Android as well as the porting of PS3 games to the NGP device. In short: there is plenty of potential for the NGP platform.
I don’t know about you, but Nintendo’s 3DS just got shafted. What would you pick?
Love your touchscreen-enabled phone, live in a cold climate, and absolutely despise having to take off your gloves to do anything with your phone? Apple hears your cries for help according to a new patent that details a soft-cloth type of glove with thin wires hidden inside the glove. While we are thrilled Apple is thinking of their end users (especially considering they produce a ton of touchscreen-only devices), do they really need to enter the market and sell an overpriced pair of cloth gloves? Off the top of my head, I can think of the IsoToner SmartTouch gloves (reviewed here) and AGloves (reviewed here) — both of which whom have touchscreen compatible gloves, but approach the problem in two very different ways. The AGloves in particular retail for only $10, making them an awesome deal.
But hey, competition’s competition, right? Another slide of iGlove patent material after the jump…
