Does FlatFrog Pressure-Sensitive Multi-touch Fall Flat?

Two years ago, you blew your nose, looked up and everyone and their grandma’s elbow was using a device fit with a multi-touch screen and fifty finger-enabled apps. There’s not much that makes multi-touch newsworthy these days, but FlatFrog is going beyond resolution and screen size updates with a pressure detecting technology that makes the future of multi-touch go a little deeper into that 2D screen. However, we can’t help but wonder about better applications for pressure-sensitive multi-touch.

FlatFrog Pressure Detection

The Swedish pioneers of multi-touch tech are showing the new displays at ISE 2013 in Amsterdam this week where you can try it out for yourself. Obviously, the addition of pressure detection provides a whole otehr level of interaction and user feedback. From their site:

Not only can it detect pressure, but it can actually detect 1000 levels of pressure for 40 individual touches. This is awesome, because it can really open up new ways of interacting with content and can improve navigation, workflow and control in operative systems and applications. You could for example press a little bit harder to open up short cuts or menus. And you know how sometimes you activate a link by mistake on your smartphone or tablet? A worry of the past… With pressure detection, users could simply press a little bit harder to, for example, open a link or close a window.

If you’re not in Amsterdam, the video of their Planar Scatter Detection technology with an unreasonable amount of hands pushing the pressure detection to its limit is below. As is typical with mult-itouch demonstrations, it’s heavy on the 2D zooming and panning and completely lacking in the 3D rotating and manipulation.

Here’s what we would like to see more of from FlatFrog (and multi-touch manufactures in general). Show how people in the 3D industry can use your technology–show the applications here. You’ve heard of 3D Printing, yes? Get in touch with 3D printer manufacturers. Work their technology in with yours, or vice versa. Touch-enabled, pressure detecting 3D printers and enhanced user interface? Yes, I believe so. 3D Scanning. If your screen can detect pressure into the screen, could you have it also detect properties of an object off the screen? Set an object on your screen, scan, print. Let’s see where we can take this now.

Via: FlatFrog

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