Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

Thin New Film Turns Anything into a Touchscreen

by Caleb Johnson on February 4, 2010 at 06:30 AM

With advancements in touchscreen technology, people are rethinking how they interact with their devices. The days of using an external keyboard and a clumsy mouse could soon be long gone. According to Wired, a Portuguese company called Displax has created a thin, polymer film that can be peeled and stuck onto glass, plastic or wood surfaces -- transforming basically anything (opaque or transparent, round or flat) into an interactive touchscreen.

The film is about 100-microns thick (i.e., really, really, thin), is equipped with a grid of nanowires, can measure anywhere from 3- to 120-inches diagonally, and, most impressively, can detect movement from up to 16 fingers at once on a 50-inch screen. To do so, the film uses a technology similar to what's used on the iPhone; which, as you probably know, is pretty darn responsive to touch. But Displax's film can do something that even the iPhone's screen can't. It can detect your breath (although we're not sure why you'd want to interact with something by blowing on a screen).

If you ask us, it'd make a lot of sense for manufacturers to embrace this technology. In the future, interactivity will only become more important, and just think how much more cost-effective it'd be for developers to plaster this film on a product rather than completely change its design and build. Plus, we'd much prefer a product come equipped with the film. That way, we wouldn't have to worry about those pesky air bubbles. [From: Wired]

Tags: interactivity, iphone, screen, top, touch, touchscreen

Comments

1

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular