Resistive Touch Screen Game Changer For Panora?

[stustaff]

well here is the story from what my quiv read and lack of technology intelligence tells me this should wrk on Pandora...

"We just got a look at some amazing touchscreen interaction, running on a humble resistive touchscreen with some OMAP hardware backing it up. Stantum's technology is a software-based refinement to resistive touchscreens that allows for accuracy beyond the pixel density of the display, a complete lack of touchscreen "jitters" and some fairly incredible input methods. Termed "TouchPark," the multitouch framework provides gesture recognition, cursor management and physics processing for phone builders to stick on top of the phone OS (Symbian, Windows Mobile and Android are currently supported), and works with hardware such as Texas Instruments Zoom, Freescale i.MX and ST Nomadic. The PMatrix multitouch firmware allows for unlimited inputs, detection of any contacting object (a finger, a stylus or even a paintbrush) and pressure sensitivity."

read the whole article here

http://www.engadget.com/

PS my typing sucks.

 

[renegadechic]

yeah, we've been talking about it over in one of the other touchscreen threads. it sounds pretty good but i think its too late for this initial run of pandoras and i've been slightly questioning their definition of pressure sensitivity, but either way it still looks fantastic.

 

[Vorporeal]

I wonder what it would take (probably lots of money) to get this software running on Pandora? Probably not going to happen, but worth looking into once it's actually making its way into consumer devices.

 

[renegadechic]

i doubt its massively expensive, but i think its too late to change the latest pandora hardware. maybe for Pandora 1.5 for later batches but not now. i dont even know if the newer screens would have more complicated connectivity but we wouldnt want to be in a position where we needed a further board revision.

 

[Alpha2]

more likely for a 2.0 version as it'd be a signifigant increase in functionalirty that alienates the first 4000 owners if they cant have it modded in easily.

 

[Vorporeal]

Wow guys, way to read the article. It's a SOFTWARE REFINEMENT to resistive touchscreens. We don't need to change the hardware, we just need to install some software. It seems to be an API or framework that can be used. Software released before it was incorporated would need to be re-written to take advantage of it, but anything written after it came out could just be written to use it and not whatever touchscreen drivers we were already using. This, of course, is assuming that it runs on Linux and is not designed for WinMo (unlikely).

EDIT: I blame this on Engadget pushing it as a totally software solution. My bad.

 

[cobaltage]

Actually, the dude in the video explains that they worked with LCD makers to make a special screen. It seems to have an enhanced touch sensor resolution. He also says that the LCD manufacturing process is "ready to go" or something along those lines.

Although very cool, I actually don't see this as being a big deal for something like the Pandora, which has the most physical controls on a handheld device ever. It is a bigger deal for tablets, IMO. The problem with gaming on the iPhone is that your touching the screen obscures too much of the screen. It would make sense if the screen were at least 7" diagonal, maybe 8.9".

 

[Zeno Arrow]

Actually, the dude in the video explains that they worked with LCD makers to make a special screen.

If anyone wants to read about the type of touchscreen needed, see here:
CODE
http://www.stantum.com/spip.php?article52

 

[bennyboy]

In the engadget video they specifically ask if existing screens could be adapted using software only, and the answer is that no, screens built to a particular (different) specification are required

 

[renegadechic]

more likely for a 2.0 version as it'd be a signifigant increase in functionalirty that alienates the first 4000 owners if they cant have it modded in easily.

we have to accept that we paid for and ordered the spec we were given. we were happy with it at the time so being embittered to any future hardware changes would be pettyand against the spirit with which we ordered the pandora in the first place. its like with the DS and PSP, people who bought the original models may be slightly resentful of the model that the one they bought is now old tech both bigger and less refined but its what they bought. if the next set of pandoras have more functionality, we can complain because its not what we bought in the first place, even if the technology is now there.

 

[pelrun]

Yup, it's not a software solution. A standard resistive touchscreen has a single pair of conductive layers that cover the entire screen. This instead has a matrix of thousands of tiny independant touchscreen elements that are scanned individually. That's what gives them the increased accuracy and multitouch capabilities.

That said, it will probably be a while before this is either widely available or cheap enough, and the standard software-filtered touchscreen is still pretty darn useful.

 

[Loonie]

we have to accept that we paid for and ordered the spec we were given. we were happy with it at the time so being embittered to any future hardware changes would be pettyand against the spirit with which we ordered the pandora in the first place. its like with the DS and PSP, people who bought the original models may be slightly resentful of the model that the one they bought is now old tech both bigger and less refined but its what they bought. if the next set of pandoras have more functionality, we can complain because its not what we bought in the first place, even if the technology is now there.

At the same time, the underlying functionality of the PSP and DS remained identical. You can still play a DS game on any DS, from the clunky original to the DSi. Same with the PSP.

Cost reduction and other little tweaks and improvements like size, display quality and battery life are simply par for the course, but a significant divergence of feature set within revisions of what is supposed to be the same product won't prove helpful to anyone, really. Which hardware features would I develop for if I wish to write Pandora software? Am I going to have to code multiple versions?

And what's with the procreating apostrophes on this forum?

 

[cobaltage]

This is going to be a little of a rant, so sorry in advance.

I really think multitouch touchscreen technology is overhyped right now. If you happen to be a certain kind of company, it is a great area for R&D and intellectual property. But there is no question in my mind that physical controls will always be a big part of gaming. An all touchscreen device like the iPhone implicitly requires that the control scheme and the visual display fight for a very limited amount of space. And your finger is a lot fatter than a stylus, especially since it is attached to that other thing ... the "hand." A lot of iPhone games use the fluid motion tracking of a single finger or the accelerometer, while almost none use multitouch, except to zoom in and out.

I read an interesting comment on a blog about how the desire for physical controls versus for a sleek, screen dependent design fluctuates back and forth in high end audio hardware, and that the same thing is happening in portable gadgets. It is mostly because of the design success of the iPhone in the UI department. Believe me, what makes the iPhone great is not that it has multitouch or that it has no buttons. What makes it great is that cool scrolling action where you flick your finger around the screen. The lack of buttons is actually really irritating.

So, when the pendulum swings back around, the Pandora design will be seen as a real revelation, because it has the most physical controls of any device of its size. And when that day comes, my friends, we will become extremely popular, and many people will want to hang out with us.

In all seriousness, the Pandora design is great for its intended purpose, so I do not forsee a need to upgrade the screen in general. More off-topic, I am a little surprised that more people are not interested in hacking the Wiimote for the Pandora. Just because it has bluteooth and it can be done. That would provide an extra wireless controller as well as an accelerometer (or two?). You cannot do that with a PSP or even a NDSi.

(edited to remove all apostrophes.)

 

[cb88]

probably what they have done is add another sensor layer to the LCD or enhance the sensor layout ... there is a white paper or two out on this

the reason resistive screens like the pandora can't handle multitouch is when you press at more than one point for instance consider the following

CODE
http://i39.tinypic.com/2ptxszr.jpg


assume that the black bars at the side are where the "lines of detection" are connected and if a dot is over a line at any point it is "on"

now tell me which dot is not really there following that logic because of any of the four at least two of them might not really be there?

obviously this can be overcome somewhat by comparing current position of points and their previous positions and velocities at which the positions are changing but even then there are limitaions

 

[Thunder]

Yeah, I posted this in the other Touchscreen topic, BTW here's another vid:
CODE
http://www.touchuserinterface.com/2009/02/stanums-new-multi-touch-framework-and.html

Really great!

It also explains a bit how it works.