Microsoft Surface is so 2008. That is what we are led to believe reading about the latest product from Future Labs, a interactive technology company that has developed Displax, a flexible and portable multitouch surface that can be integrated with any existing surface or screen.

Remember Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, 1971, and the Fruit Flavored Wallpaper?

Willy Wonka, 1971

Displax is the music makers and helps the dreamers of dreams, to quote from the film. With Displax, it is possible to make virtually any surface interactive to touch. Measuring only 100 microns thin an active area could be as small as 13 inches (35cm) and as large as 118”(3m). The technology currently can track up to 16 unique touchpoints when scaled to 50” and is not hindered by lighting or environmental conditions. Adhering the material to any existing monitor or projector turns the surface into an interactive touch screen.

Displax

So where can Wonka’s glass elevator take us? The possibilities are endless. The 11 killer apps for Microsoft Surface could certainly apply to this technology. The fact that this system is mobile opens a new set of opportunities. As an interactions designer, I could easily see myself setting up a mobile synthesis workspace at a client’s office to engage them in interactive digital whiteboarding and workflow analysis. Rather than resort to post-its and sharpies, which I love, the entire team can engage with a digital whiteboard. At the end of the session, files can be shared and the entire system can be transported back to the office. Alternately, this could be used as a touch surface alone. Just as Microsoft Surface allows the ‘sending’ of files by swiping them across the table, what if my desk at work was touch sensitive and I could send my co-workers files without email? Office spaces and designers are far from the place benefits from this technology will take place. Assuming a relatively low entry cost, stores and marketing firms could use the technology to make interactive bus shelters, store displays and window kiosks. Where previously these experiences required multiple cameras and rear projected displays, the entire system is now self contained and modular.

This is a mobile technology, but on a significantly larger scale than the iPad or latest Android device. As cost for the technology drops, the biggest hurdle will be engaging the general public with systems and displays that were once a passive read only of information. Technology is half the battle and addressing how to reframe experiences in the mundane (walking to work, bus shelters, security lines at the airport) to make them more engaging and rewarding is the true challenge interactions designers, developers, and the like have laid out in front of them.

_{Main Image From Displax.com}

_{Displax Image From Fast Company}

In my first article I laid some ground work discussing touch as part of an ecosystem and the matrix of inputs available for people to interact with systems. In this article we’ll look at making things a little more complicated by adding in different technologies, form factors, and the cardio effect of touch.

Even when narrowing the input method solely to touch, designers are still faced with a complex matrix of issues that they may not yet be aware of. Let’s consider orientation the first variable in this equation. Are you designing for a horizontal, vertical, or tilted system? In the media today, such as CNN, we mostly see vertical touch walls. A few years ago you could barely find companies developing these, and now the field is fast filling up with companies using different technologies, sizes, price points, and interaction techniques to develop their systems. Until touch walls are really commoditized, I don’t see them moving much beyond novelty and “cool” factor. Not that I’m complaining, anything that gets touch more into the public eye is good business for me. Although as designers we must not become jaded to the fact that most people have not used touch walls… or touch computers beyond an airport kiosk or ATM, despite what we may think.

Continuing on vertical systems, I’m not sure how many readers here have tried one, but while they are cool for show-off factor, there is one key piece of information people forget. Holding your arms up to use a vertical touch system makes you tired. It’s not easy, and not much fun after a few minutes. Hence why none of these technologies are made for serious personal use at this point. Of course the other aspect besides the cardio work out, is accuracy. When holding your arms out, people tend not to be super accurate because they must fight gravity. A horizontal system can produce better accuracy in that respect [although there is still the fat-finger concern], but may have issues from wrists or elbows acting as accidental inputs. Extrapolating some basic starting points, use Fitts’s law, make things large, try to determine accidental contacts, and utilize transient tasks for vertical orientations.

All that in the simple aspect of vertical and horizontal, and we haven’t even begun yet. In addition to orientation, designers must start to think about technology and form. With Windows 7 introducing touch, designers will now see touch becoming a more common interaction commodity on personal computers. Looking at the mouse and keyboard, the positive aspect is they’re standardized technologies. A mouse is always represented with a cursor, the same way every time. The keyboard has the same keys and same layout [within a given culture]. Despite different technologies and hardware manufacturers, there are constants in these tools. Unfortunately touch, manipulation, and gestures do not get the same ease of consistency. Consider the chart below.

This is a small portion of what is available on the market for touch PC’s. Since there isn’t a standard way to provide touch input, different companies are presenting their methods in new and separate proprietary ways. This means tough problems for designers of touch and gesture working across various systems; in other words, anyone designing a touch application for Windows 7. In addition to the basics, like the number of simultaneous touch inputs systems can accept, the difference in technologies means all touch inputs are not created equal. A capacitive system, like the iPhone, relies on energy generated from a person’s body, it needs a person to make a touch. An infrared camera systems, like the HP Touchsmart, relies on having an object break a “blanket” on infrared beams. This means an object (not necessarily a person) can create a touch contact point. Additionally, varying numbers of simultaneous touch inputs means gestural interfaces can be more difficult to design and develop. Adding to these issues, people who design cross platform applications must consider the ability for direct touch on Windows 7 and indirect track pad gesture interactions on an Apple MacBook.

I wish I could offer great suggestions or solutions for how to tackle these problems, but we’re searching for the answers as well. For now I’ll just have the leave with the thought that designing systems for touch will get harder before they gets easier, and I look forward to it. New challenges, new interactions, and adapting the worlds behavior to a new type of input. We have some of the toughest problems around. This isn’t the mouse, this isn’t the keyboard, this isn’t controlled. It’s design in the wild, sometimes out of our control… how will we all work to solve it?

For additional discussion and insight on these topics you can view my interview for the MSDN Channel 9 site.

When looking at the future of digital interactions, we’re bombarded with dozens of multi-touch interfaces. Although this technology looks really promising, it still has a lot of downsides. One of the most evident one, when looking at small screens, is the fact that your hands block the view of your display. Fortunately Mitsubishi, Microsoft and the University of Toronto are working on a possible solution.

Some time ago these three have been working on a prototype called LucidTouch; ‘a See-Through Mobile Device.’ This new system is focused around a multi-touch screen, but instead of controlling it from the front you control LucidTouch from the backside. This works because the screen is semi transparant, displaying both the information on the screen and showing the position of your hands (see video). Because of this you are able to control the system very fluently, like a Gameboy or PSP (Playstation Portable). This means that you are finally able to completely focus on the screen, fully experiencing what’s happening there.

One of the latest developments in the Touch experiments is nanoTouch, going even further in trying to find solutions for ever shrinking multi-touch devices. In this experiment they created a 2.4-inch screen with a touch pad on the backside. According to researchers you’d be able to easily control objects of 1.8mm in size.

At the moment LucidTouch and nanoTouch are still in a proof of concept stage. The semi transparancy is created by a big camera attached to backside. Hopefully this can be integrated in the future. Nonetheless it’s still a strong experiment, which could seriously increase the usefullness of mobile multi-touch interfaces. With every shrinking displays this technology will keep it workable. Maybe a good solution for a iPhone Nano?

We all know multitouch technology looks really cool, but also that it’s still very expensive. Fortunately a group of developers is working on an ‘open source/cross-platform solution for computer vision and multi-touch sensing’, called tbeta. This software will eventually enable everybody to create his or her own multitouch device. Because of the open source character it’ll be easy to experiment and create new interactions.

This is a demo of the latest build of the platform:

tbeta preview from ~ on Vimeo.

The demo appears to work pretty smooth. Already a score of people are playing around with the code and coming up with their own interfaces. It’s really interesting to see how fast these innovations are growing. We’re finally being pushed away from our desk, playing around and experimenting again.

The big advantage of open source is the community that grows around it. It’s not a black box where every now and then an update will be released, but a continuous discussion and growth. The opening up of the multitouch technology will probably push innovation and create new insights.

Of course you’ll first have to build your own multitouch unit, before being able to play around. But, as it is an open source project, there are some nice tutorials for this on the forum. There is “How to make a cheap multitouch pad” for the beginners and “Build a rear projection multi-touch television” for medium or advanced users.

A simple tutorial to build your own mini multi-touch pad: