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If you’re like me, you’re curious as to just how this whole "Windows 7 multi-touch" thing works. If you haven’t yet, I encourage you to take a look at a previous article I wrote regarding the Windows 7 NUI/NUE (Natural User Interface/Natural User Experience). It will serve as an excellent primer for this deep dive we’re about to take in regards to Windows 7’s multi-touch technology. While most of you are certainly familiar with such technology existing in Apple’s iPhone and Microsoft’s Surface, it’s time to learn exactly how this technology works - specifically in regards to Windows 7. It’s called DuoSense™ and it belongs to N-Trig; an Israeli-based company founded in 1999 with locations in multiple countries. With that in mind, I’ve decided to take to a Q&A approach to this end all, be all write-up of DuoSense™.
Q: What is DuoSense™?
A: DuoSense™ is a single dual-mode digitizer that provides a solution for combining both stylus and touch (including multi-touch) input capabilities. Using a stylus will provide the same amount of (limited) usability as it always has while the touch functionality pushes computing interactions into a more natural realm (promoting NUE).
Q: What the hell is a "single dual-mode digitizer," and more importantly, will it make my breakfast for me?
A: First of all, no, it will not make your breakfast for you, but Rafael Rivera Jr. would be glad to. Click his name, grab his email address and send him an email telling him to make your breakfast for you. That aside, "single dual-mode digitizer" basically translates to "one (single) thing (digitizer) that accepts 2 forms of input (touch/multi-touch and stylus)". N-trig’s digitizer sits on top of an LCD screen. You can visualize this by imagining you’re building a laptop and want to install one of N-trig’s digitizers. You would have your laptop shell, your LCD screen, and then your N-trig digitizer. Here is a graphical representation of this scenario (and yes, that is Windows 7’s new GUI you can barely make out there on the desktop):
Q: What’s so special about this digitizer accepting both forms of input? Likewise, what’s so great about using my finger versus a stylus or, say, my big toe?
A: Let’s start by differentiating N-trig’s DuoSense™ digitizer from the other currently-existing technologies currently in the market. First, what's out there (remember that this whole article is in relation to computers and not mobile phone devices):
- EMR (Electromagnetic Resonance) Digitizers: This technology consists of a digitizer that sits BEHIND an LCD, thus requiring specialized LCD panels. They leverage the stylus and track stylus movements. They do not recognize touch commands.
- Resistive Sensor: These are mechanical sensors mounted on top of LCD’s (like N-trig’s digitizer). While these sensors recognize touch, they have a poor sense of accuracy, transparency and durability. They are not capable of interpreting multi-touch.
Neither of the technologies above support both pen AND touch functionality. This is where DuoSense™ digitizers come in, beat the crap out of the bad guy, save the girl and fly off into the sunset! What we’re going to do now is dig deep into how the sensor is made, the materials involved, and take a look at a few specs.
I'm not going to go too deep into how the ITO layers work, because it would take this article well outside of the realm of enjoyable reading for most of you. lol. It would be informative but if you're interested in learning about them beyond knowing that they are instrumental in the coordination of screen input, click here: Indium Tin Oxide
PCB is an acronym for "Printed Circuit Board". They essentially provide the link between input on the digitizer and the device the digitizer is attached to. If you want to take a more advanced look into them, click here: Printed Circuit Boards
The glass, hard coat, and adhesives are all pretty self-explanatory but here's something that makes those layers amazing: The WHOLE digitizer weighs in at a mere 176 grams, or .388 pounds. That makes each of those layers unbelievably thin, which keeps devices remarkably close to their original size/weight prior to the addition of a digitizer. What else is there to know about these thin marvels?
Zero-Pressure Touch: DuoSense™ digitizers leverage capacitive touch as opposed to the commonly-used resistive touch. This means you can say "bye-bye" to accidental input drops or skips! Likewise, this means the user's interactions will be the most seamless ever.
Unique Electrostatic Stylus: The DuoSense™ stylus is noted as being light, ergonomic, customizable, and requires no internal power source. "With an integral sensor that changes transmission frequency in accordance with tip pressure, the pressure-sensitive DuoSense™ stylus offers a more natural, hassle-free, and lifelike pen experience, and features rightclick and eraser capabilities."
Ridiculously High Accuracy: "With touch and pen accuracy of less than .4mm, and touch accuracy of less than .4mm with zero force of actuation, DuoSense™ solutions offer more accurate input. Moreover, DuoSense™ capacitive touch and writing surface eliminates the resistive touch screen spacer dots that compromise pen performance in traditional solutions."
Palm (and butt) Rejection: "DuoSense™ differentiates between intentional and inadvertent contact, and allows the user to simply and seamlessly switch between pen and touch."
Reliability and Scalability: "DuoSense™'s robust integral design improves reliability with solid state electronics that require no external controller. A constant pitch on the digitizer grid allows for unlimited scaling without optical performance degradation, supporting the full range of computing screen sizes."
OS Compatibility: DuoSense™ is currently fully compatible with XP and Vista. Naturally, development for Windows 7 is currently under way.
Video: Multi-Touch in Windows 7
In addition to the aforementioned, Multi-touch Gestures (MTG) make all the difference. Basically, instead of using just one finger, you can use multiple fingers to perform a multitude of unique tasks and tasks that replace traditional keyboard and mouse actions. Here is a small number of gestures you can perform:
Q: Alright, so how does the OS know when you're touching and what does all of this have to do with Windows 7?
A: Hopefully, you have gathered by this point that the DuoSense digitizer is the ONLY device that performs everything Microsoft has in store for its multi-touch features in Windows 7. Microsoft develops upon N-Trig's DuoSense™ API suite which will also be available to vendors for creating third-party software capable of leveraging everything DuoSense™ has to offer! The DuoSense™ digitizer is ready to work from the point of being physically installed to having its driver installed. From there, it's up to software developers to take advantage of the technology and create programs to leverage it. Microsoft is banking heavily on this technology and where it goes from here, who knows.
N-Trig DuoSense™ Roadmap:
Multi-touch Gestures: MTG improvements, SDK support, On-screen keyboard. Proprietary SDK release planned for Q1'09 and is in synchronization with Windows 7 development.
New Sensor Structures: Glass on top - no bezel design where the ITO is on the glass itself. Also, a glass-only sensor is in the works.
Large Range of Form Factors: DuoSense digitizers ranging from 7"-24".
Alternate OS Compatibility: Linux and Mac OS X Leopard. (You read that right. You can expect Apple to finally take crap for "stealing" a feature Microsoft implements into its OS first. lol)
In addition to the plethora of information in this article, much, much more can be found on their digitizers via patent searches and by scouring their website. Make sure to take advantage of those if you're interested in learning more about this technology.
Visit: www.n-trig.com
-Stephen
9 comments:
First comment! Looks really neat, thanks for this.
It contains exactly what I want to know. Thanks for great article.
with too many layers on top of the screen, isn't it affecting the quality of the image on the screen?
This is a really nice technology in principle, but unfortunately, it doesn't work at all.
The N-Trig interfaces to the XT by an internal USB port. ANY other USB device which is plugged in may, and usually does, prevent the applet (program which controls the features) from identifying the N-Trig hardware. In addition, certain other drivers, such as iTunes Helper, may cause this prolem. (Or maybe not.) This still leaves you with dual sense but without Multi-Touch and other advanced features. Unfortunately, the driver may crash, catestrophically or non-catestrophically, leaving you with no screen input at all. A re-boot MAY solve the problem, but often the driver installation is damaged, requiring a re-installation of the drivers. But the install program will not uninstall if it doesn't recognise the N-Trig hardware. In this case, the alternatives are (1) restore the entire operating system from backup, (2) manually uninstall by erasing all N-Trig programs and drivers then editing the registry to remove all references to N-Trig, then re-install the N-Trig software, or (3) do a complete re-install of Windows. These problems occur both with XP and Vista, 32 and 64 bit so it seems to be a pretty significent problem. What is REALLY bad is that Dell sells a MediaBase with an internal DVD drive. Using this MediatBase almost guarantees that you will destroy your system.
All in all, an idea whos time has not come.
I have to say that I am very disappointed in my XT, it seems to be a general trend I've noticed nowadays for companies to release unfinished technology promising all sorts of things... I've decided that it is the last time I buy a "state of the art" device, as for me that has come to mean, glitch ridden and disappointing... And it's not just Dell and N-Trig, I've been burnt by Apple, Nokia, HTC, Toshiba, Sony... The list goes on... Is there anyone who has bought a piece of "new" technology in the last 5 years that has worked properly when it was released? Anyway, I have to say my XT works fine as long as it is not in the media bay when I start it up... But really??? Is so much to ask that my $3000 laptop can be switched on without worrying about it being plugged into anything???
I'm betting that since Apple got a multi-touch OS and device built and released already, albeit on a much smaller scale, they will probably end up releasing a laptop with the same technology they used for the iPhone, maybe even before this technology (for Windows) is perfected and Windows 7 is released. I hate to admit it myself, but for a few years now, Apple has been ahead of Microsoft on almost all technologies. They revolutionized the MP3 player with the iPod. Then, they created a phone with multi-touch capabilities and revolutionized touch-screen technology; they also designed an amazing natural user interface for the iPhone. Also, they made a laptop lighter and thinner than ever before. Chances are, they will use the same technology they used on the iPhone and iPod touch to make a laptop with multi-touch capability and design a new OS to handle it.
@Nuck Chorris
Except... Microsoft has had touch in the operating system since Windows 98 (could've been earlier, but Windows 98 AT LEAST). And, another person wrong. *Shakes head*. Listen, please, Apple did not invent multitouch! NO! Nor did Microsoft by the way (oh, Microsoft was still the first to implement it - the Surface, out before the iPhone, in development since 2001).
So yeah, just, no.
This is how shall I say.... A product that I would most definitely love to have around the house, I mean it is beneficial.. Am I right or Am I Right?! Whether some may agree or not, it doesn't bug me to enjoy the company of one of these :)
If everybody has them, I think I should have the opportunity in luxuriating myself with the presence of making this my present! Gotta say, its mainly because how well you've explained everything
It's a great gift except for sometimes, but hey it surely does re-coupe and make up for boring and lost times..
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