Touch Screen Gadget

Google previews a touch of Adroids

Posted by admin | Category: Software, Trend Watch & News

Google demonstrated some new tricks of its Android mobile phone software, including an elaborate use of Google Maps Street View and a touch-screen interface with abilities known for their presence on Apple’s iPhone.

Steve Horowitz, Android’s engineering director, used flicking gestures to sweep from the phone’s home screen to another during a speech here Wednesday at the Google I/O conference. More unusual, though was a demonstration of how the phone’s internal compass and accelerometer can enliven Street View.

After calling up a view of San Francisco using a Web browser, Horowitz turned around, and the Street View screen panned left or right accordingly, reflecting his orientation.

Also new were demonstrations of a central notification service that can display new e-mail, missed phone calls, and calendar appointments; the ability to unlock the phone using a specific connect-the-dots swipe across the screen; an option to put browser or contact list shortcuts on the Android desktop; and a version of Pac-Man from Namco. Read the rest of this entry »

Kenwood All-in-One GPS and Multimedia Units

Posted by admin | Category: Car & Bike, GPS Navigation & Guidance System

Kenwood Electronics Canada has announced a pair of new in-dash Double DIN DVD receivers, outfitted with audio, video, and navigation functionality via a built-in Garmin system.

The DNX5120 and DNX7120 contain complete maps of Canada, continental U.S., Hawaii and Alaska, along with over 6 million points of interest. The system uses internal flash memory for the navigation software.

Both models are equipped for use with satellite and HD radio, as well as Bluetooth devices. They also boast high-speed, USB Direct Control for controlling an iPod directly from the receivers’ touch-screen display. They also include a Sirius SSP interface for connection to a Sirius SC-C1C direct connect tuner.

The DNX7120 features a 6.95” TFT LCD touch-screen display with a new GUI and user-customizable icons for the start-up screen. The display employs Kenwood’s exclusive Reverse Tilt mechanism with angle memory save to preserve the angle settings, even if the power is disconnected. This unit also incorporates Kenwood’s Dual Zone feature, which allows the front seat passengers to view the navigation screen and listen to satellite radio while rear seat passengers enjoy a DVD, for example.

Kenwood’s System Es and System Q provide audio equalization and fine-tuning of the system for each vehicle. Two external switches can be set up to control a garage door opener, security gate or virtually any external device from the receiver’s front panel. The DNX7120 is now available for an MSRP of $1,900.

The DNX5120 ($1,500) features a 6.1” TFT LCD touch screen display with a user-programmable start-up screen, selectable icons and variable-colour illumination of the front panel controls. An AV input on the front permits the connection of an portable audio/video player or camcorder.

[hereshow]

Microsoft big touch wall

Posted by admin | Category: Table and Floor, Trend Watch & News

One of the things Bill Gates showed today at Microsoft’s annual CEO Summit was a Touch Wall, based on Windows Vista and Plex: “a 4×6 foot plexiglass screen, a rear projector, a infrared camera and the three infrared lasers”. CrunchGear got a demo, and says:

Microsoft is quick to say that they have no current plans to productize and sell TouchWall. But the potential of the system is obvious — Prately spoke animatedly about a future where the computing experience is less monitor/keyboard/mouse and more like an architect’s desk, with user input primarily directly on the screen and via voice commands, with keyboard/mouse type input used more for data entry or office type editing tasks.

It also works with, say, a cardboard screen. CrunchGear adds:

It’s also clear that the only real limit on the screen size is the projector, meaning that entire walls can easily be turned into a multi touch user interface. Scrap those white boards in the office, and make every flat surface into a touch display instead.

[guardian]

Conductive Polymer Thick Films for Fine Line Screen Printing

Posted by admin | Category: Industry, Trend Watch & News

Five Star Technologies announced thatit will introduce ElectroSperse(TM) P-series silver-based conductor pastesat Display Week 2008 in Los Angeles on May 18-23. The new pastes aredesigned for use on low temperature plastic substrates typically found insuch applications as display electrodes, touch screen sensors, heaters,RFID antenna, biosensors and membrane switches. The initial P-series products are targeted for use in touch screen sensors, combining high productivity and ease of use with excellent conductivity and exceptional printability. The new pastes demonstrate excellent adhesion to a variety of flexible media, including ITO (Indium Tin Oxide)-coated polyester.

Like all pastes in the ElectroSperse line, the P-series productscontain a highly uniform dispersion of silver with a tightly controlledparticle size distribution in the low to sub-micron range. Such uniformityenables customers to directly print features as small as 50 um with muchgreater precision and consistency than conventional pastes, eliminating theneed for costly subtractive processes. Initial grades are intended forscreen printing applications, but Five Star will soon introduce a series ofproducts with controlled rheology to match a variety of printing processes.

The ElectroSperse line also includes D-series silver-based cermetpastes, designed for firing onto glass and other high temperaturesubstrates. D-series pastes are available in both leaded and lead-freeversions and offer a unique combination of high conductivity, fine lineprinting, strong adhesion to coated-glass substrates. Specific grades areavailable with firing temperatures as low as 380C, a temperature that oftenlends itself to significantly greater overall product stability. D-seriespastes are ideal for printed interconnects and linearization patterns incapacitive and 5-wire resistive touch screen sensors.

    About Five Star Technologies

    Five Star Technologies is a supplier of high-performance dispersions,
inks and pastes used in displays, photovoltaics and microelectronic
packaging applications. Combining its patented hydrodynamic cavitation
process with innovative chemistry, Five Star produces the ElectroSperse
series of inks and pastes as well as a wide range of precision dispersions.
All Five Star products exhibit unparalleled rheological stability and
exceptional particle size control, creating the future in functional inks.
For more information, please visit Five Star Technologies website at
http://www.fivestartech.com.

    About Display Week

    The SID International Symposium, Seminar and Exhibition, now in its
46th year and known as Display Week, is the premier international gathering
of scientists, engineers, manufacturers and users in the electronic-display
industry. The event provides access to a wide range of technology and
applications from high-definition flat-panel displays using both emissive
and liquid-crystal technology to the latest in OLED displays and large-area
projection-display systems. One can find state-of-the-art information on
the latest in image processing, systems software and display processor
hardware, human factors and applied vision, and exciting new applications
such as multimedia and the electronic cinema. With more than 550 booths and
8,000 attendees, SID is the leading North American show for the
electronic-display industry.

Agetec Touch Darts for Nintendo DS

Posted by admin | Category: Games & Console

Fearlessly step up to the oche in Agetec’s new dart game.

Agetec has announced that Touch Darts, a Nintendo DS game developed by Full Fat, will hit the store shelves in North America in June 2008. In Touch Darts, players can use the touch screen to simulate the throwing of a dart. Drawing with the stylus over the touch screen, players will be able to aim their dart and throw it. Touch Darts comes with four classic dart modes: tournament, challenge, quickplay, and multiplayer. Quickplay and multiplayer mode gives up to four players the chance to square off on the board via single cartridge. Tournament mode includes four different levels of difficulty ranking from Rookie to Expert.

WriteSHIELD crystal-CLEAR Screen Protector

Posted by admin | Category: Trend Watch & News

Mobilitysite has written a good explaination on how to apply a screen protector on to your touch screen gadgets.

"

Preparation Is Key To Success!

If my HTC Mogul was brand new, I would have skipped a few steps in the instructions and applied the protector to a virgin screen. Since my HTC Mogul is several months old and its screen has been exposed to all the normal elements like facial oils, dust, and fingerprints a bit of preparation was necessary prior to the protector application. The instructions suggest washing your hands with soap and water to reduce the risk of the oils from your hands transferring to the screen protector as you handle it.

A dust-free environment is critical for successfully applying a screen protector to your device. I have 4 teenagers, 2 cats, and a dog roaming throughout our home. Lacking a certified “clean-room”, I find that I can generate an acceptable alternative by setting up a temporary workspace on the bathroom counter and running a hot shower for a couple of minutes to generate enough steam to suppress most of potential dust-squatters that would otherwise attempt to take up residence on your screen as you apply the protector. Believe me, trapping one tiny dust particle underneath your screen protector will make you grimace (and could damage your screen unless removed).

The first step in preparation involves cleaning the screen. I used the micro fiber cloth to clean most of the screen. The included soft-bristle brush was used to gently coax any dust particles out from the corners of my Mogul. I tried getting at those little screen-bunnies with the cloth, but they were nestled nice and cozy in the corners. The included brush was the only way I could successfully remove them. "

For more details, click here.

Stylish Universal Remote design

Posted by admin | Category: Home Appliance, Remote Control

 Simply called the Universal Remote, the device would be flash capable so it could display anything from channel listings to more elaborate menus. With a touchscreen, the right frequencies and support from outside companies, the remote would allow you to change your television’s volume to turning on the oven or dimming the lights — and companies could create custom graphic user interfaces for a product, too.

[here]

DT Research’s WebDT 310 Tablet review

Posted by admin | Category: Tablet PC & UMPC

Tablet PC sales hit just a relatively small 4.6 percent of the overall mobile PC market last year, according to research firm IDC, but are poised to grow significantly faster as more applications enter the market that take advantage of their functionality.

That’s worth keeping in mind, too, as an increasing number of service and commercial businesses have been trying to use tablets to boost productivity and work flow, with a large portion of this growth in the Industrial Mobile Tablet market.

As the first in this segment with an integrated bar code scanner, a 2 Megapixel camera, and a Magnetic Stripe Reader (MSR), all-in-one; San Jose, California based DT Research’s recently released WebDT 310 and 360 models aim to address the requirements of many vertical markets.

The WebDT 310 that the Test Center recently evaluated has a 10.4 inch touch screen and weighs two pounds (versus the 360’s 8.4 inch touch screen at 1.8 pounds). The highly customizable units are fan-less, with solid state memory and a solid state drive. Options include hot-swappable/wearable battery packs, and the customer’s choice of Windows Embedded XP, CE, or Tablet PC operating systems. This allows companies with existing commercial applications to continue running them without re-engineering.

While many tablets are available with the choice of scanner, camera, or MSR, DT Research claims that this is the first device available with all three (each as an added option). At the bottom of the screen are three customizable buttons to the left, and four on the right. There is also a fingerprint reader in the center. Our evaluation unit was fitted with protective bumpers on the sides and an elasticized hand strap in the back. The horizontal placement of the hand strap makes long-term use of the tablet in landscape position very tiring. Portrait orientation was much more comfortable. In addition, although the fan-less design makes the WebDT virtually silent, this causes the back panel to get very hot.

Read the rest of this entry »

Windows Mobile 6.1 improvements

Posted by admin | Category: Smartphone, Windows Mobile

Microsoft recently introduced Windows Mobile 6.1, an upgrade of the Windows Mobile operating system.

It adds new features and capabilities to the previous (6.0) version, enhancing your Web browsing and day-to-day use of Windows Mobile. It also adds new features and capabilities of interest to the enterprise users. This article looks at some of the more important enhancements.

Improved Messaging

Microsoft has made some significant enhancements in the Messaging application. For enterprise users Microsoft added Exchange Auto-Discovery, which makes it easier to set up synchronization with Exchange. Users are now able to download e-mail from all accounts at the same time. Microsoft added auto-complete for e-mail recipients, which makes it easier for users to enter e-mail addresses on small keyboards and touch screens. Also, Windows Mobile 6.1 added the ability to select multiple e-mail items in the list so you can easily delete or move e-mail. Finally, Windows Mobile 6.1 includes optimizing the bandwidth utilization for Exchange, POP3, and IMAP4, which is very important to enterprise wireless data users.

 

Other enhancements to WM 6.1

A number of enhancements made to Windows Mobile 6.1 are of particular interest:

• Bluetooth headset auto-pairing: Makes it easier to pair your device with standard Bluetooth headsets.
• Bluetooth phone address profile: This enables the transfer of phone book information across phone-enabled Bluetooth devices.
• Network Time (NITZ) Description: Automatically updates the time on a device when it moves into a new time zone or receives a Daylight Savings Time (DST) change from the cellular network.
• Cut, Copy, and Paste capability added to Windows Mobile Standard (non-touch screen) smartphones.
• Enhanced "Getting Started CD" not only contains user-installable versions of Mobile Device Center and ActiveSync, it includes software that helps the user set up their device and an application that makes e-mail setup easier by exporting their Outlook settings from a desktop PC to the Windows Mobile device.

Managing Mobile Devices—System Center Mobile Device Manager

Last fall, Microsoft released a new server to manage Windows Mobile devices called System Center Mobile Device Manager (SCMDM). SCMDM actually adds Windows Mobile Devices to Active Directory and provides group policy management of the device security as well as a separate VPN connection optimized for Windows Mobile. Windows Mobile 6.1 is required to support SCMDM. SCMDM is covered in detail in the Enterprise section on page 55.

Read the rest of this entry »

2008 is a Haptic year across many industry player

Posted by admin | Category: Car & Bike, Home Appliance, Industry, MP3 Player, Mobile Phone, Multi Touch, Trend Watch & News

Haptic (the sense of touch) technology, which is all the rage in mobile phone market, is spreading to a wide variety of IT products including navigation and large billboard as well as other mobile phones like MP3P. Haptic is a vibration technology to interface the user and is highly recognized as a feedback technology of mobile devices with touch screen.

 

Click here on benefits and values of Haptic

Samsung Electronics announced on 13 that it will adopt Haptic technology for the next model of MP3P ‘YEPP P2’ carrying 3 inch touch screen as Anycall Haptic phone sales reached 100,000 units in one month after release. “Haptic technology is essential to all touch based mobile devices. MP3P adopting the technology will be released within this year.” said Park,
Du-eui, the Head of planning team in DM at Samsung. It means Samsung Electronics, leading haptic technology through mobile phone, wants to lead market with various mobile devices.
Navigation companies are moving quickly to adopt the technology. Currently, two leading navigation companies are developing haptic based navigations for car with a goal of releasing in the second half of this year. Navigation adopting haptic can enable drivers confirm input without seeing screen. A researcher of the navigation industry said, “To increase safety for users, we are developing prototype adopting haptic function and if the issue of production price is resolved, we will release quickly.”
DID (Digital Information Display) companies are reportedly considering adopting haptic technology. The reason for their interest is that it enables ads of experience. For example, if you touch DID displaying hamburger, you feel as if pluck off bread and see lettuce, cheese and ham.
Seo, Dong-hee, the President of Emersion Korea, a vibration solution company, said, “Current technology enables haptic technology to adjust length and height of vibration in a 40 inch display. In the near future, people can touch billboard in streets.

[etnews]

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