Archives for posts with tag: Multitouch

The Coding4Fun Show: Natural User Interfaces with Josh Blake

June 4, 10 //

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In this episode of the Coding4Fun Show, Brian Peek chats with Josh Blake about Natural User Interfaces and Multitouch programming with .NET. Josh has written a multitouch PowerPoint replacement called NaturalShow, which was demonstrated during his NUI session at MIX10. Watch and learn a bit about how this application was created as well as how you can write multitouch applications with WPF. And for even more multitouch programming goodness and more on NaturalShow, Josh is currently working on a book titled Multitouch on Windows, which can be purchased and read while he’s writing it!

Windows Touch Pack Now Available

April 22, 10 //

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One of the more common question we’ve seen flying around lately is “Where can I download the Touch Pack for Windows 7?” That’s been a difficult question to answer because the Touch Pack was created for OEMs and wasn’t meant to be a MS Download. That changed tonight, and you can now download the Touch Pack from the Microsoft Download Center. The Touch Pack features three games and three apps, including the Microsoft Surface Globe, MS Collage, MS Surface Lagoon, MS Blackboard, MS Rebound, and MS Garden Pond.

Give Me a Side of Scrollbar. Supersized.

March 4, 10 //

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Let’s say you finally got your hands on a multitouch laptop, whether a PDC laptop, HP TX2, or something else. With the smaller screens, you might say to yourself “Hey, it’s almost as if this scrollbar was made more for a mouse cursor than my fat greasy finger.” You’re kind of right, but fortunately some fine minds at Microsoft had already thought about that. Recall the Origami Experience 2.0 pack from Microsoft. This incredibly helpful bit of bytes will allow you to optimize the chrome on your apps for fat fingers, with taller title bars, bigger Min|Max|Close buttons, and wider scrollbars. There’s an option to put the touch keyboard by the systray and enable a touch pointer.

Two other components of Origami Experience include Origami Now and Origami Central. Origami Now is kind of a gadget carousel that will let you create and rotate through tiles of things like weather, clocks, calendars, email, lists, pictures, notes or (pre-defined & out-of-date) RSS feeds. Origami Central includes a fat finger friendly media player, web browser, and customizable program launcher.

Keep in mind this is UMPC/Vista code. Mileage may vary, caveat emptor, etc. etc. But I’ve used it on the PDC laptop without a hitch.

The Tech Behind The Hard Rock Cafe

February 12, 10 //

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While there’s nothing wrong with the California Club, you don’t go to a Hard Rock Cafe because you love food. You go because you love music, and now you’re likely to stay longer because you love technology. Knowing the value of memorabilia, Hard Rock took on the huge task of photographing their memorabilia collection in high resolution, feeding it into their office SharePoint. Today, that SharePoint drives the Hard Rock Memorabilia site, the 18′x4′ multitouch “Rock Wall” in Orlando, the Rock Wall Solo in Seattle, all the Hard Rock Microsoft Surface computers, and Microsoft Pivot. And all of it is tagged and indexed with the inside story and Deep Zoomable.

The access to this content is incredible when you think about it. These rockers could teach the world a thing or two about how digital curation is done. Think of how much stuff sits on a shelf at the Smithsonian, Vatican, and thousands of other museums and art galleries around the world. In this video, Hard Rock CIO Joe Tenczar gives us a tour of some of the tech you’ll see in the latest Hard Rock Cafes.

Here is a link to the Photosynth of Tommy Alsop’s wallet that I mentioned in the video. And don’t miss my behind the scenes look at the Hard Rock Cafe warehouse.

Where the Multitouch Devices Are pt. 2

February 12, 10 //

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In October I put together a list of all the available multitouch hardware that I could find. Here is an updated list of multitouch hardware. The number of touch points on each differ, and because that number is tied to the driver and can change, I haven’t included that. A good rule of thumb is that optical and resistive often have 2 touch points while capacitive often have 4 or more. Thanks to Shane Abreu for helping compile the list.

OEM	Model	Platform	Form Factor	Technology
Acer	Aspire AS5738PG	Notebook	Clamshell	Capacitive
Acer	Aspire Z5610	Desktop	AIO	Optical
Acer	1420P	Notebook	Tablet	Resistive
Asus	Eee PC T91	Netbook	Netbook	Resistive
Dell	SX2210T	Display	Monitor	Optical
Dell	Latitude XT	Notebook	Tablet	Capacitive
Dell	Latitude XT2	Notebook	Tablet	Capacitive
Dell	Studio One 19	Desktop	AIO	Optical
Dell	Studio 17	Notebook	Clamshell	Capacitive
Fujitsu	Lifebook T4310	Notebook	Tablet	Capacitive
Fujitsu	Lifebook T4410	Notebook	Tablet	Capacitive
Fujitsu	LifeBook 5010	Notebook	Tablet	Capacitive
Fujitsu	DeskPower F Series	Desktop	AIO	Optical
Fujitsu	T900	Notebook	Tablet	Capacitive
Fujitsu	LifeBook UH900	Notebook	Netbook	?
Gateway	Gateway One ZX4800	Desktop	AIO	Optical
HP	TouchSmart 600t	Desktop	AIO	Optical
HP	TouchSmart 300z	Desktop	AIO	Optical
HP	TouchSmart TX2	Notebook	Tablet	Capacitive
HP	TouchSmart dx9100	Desktop	AIO	Optical
HP	DV3	Notebook	Clamshell	Capacitive
HP	TM2	Notebook	Tablet	Capacitive
HP	5102	Notebook	Netbook	Capacitive
HP	L2105tm	Display	Monitor	Optical
HP	L5009tm	Display	Monitor	Optical
Lenovo	ThinkPad X200	Notebook	Tablet	Capacitive
Lenovo	ThinkPad T400	Notebook	Clamshell	Capacitive
Lenovo	IdeaPad S10-3t	Notebook	Tablet	Capacitive
Lenovo	C310	Desktop	AIO	Optical
Medion	X9613	Desktop	AIO	Optical
MSI	AE2220	Desktop	AIO	Optical
Positivo	Union Touch 2200	Desktop	AIO	Optical
Sony	VAIO L	Desktop	AIO	Optical
Toshiba	Satellite U505	Notebook	Clamshell	Capacitive
Toshiba	Satellite M505	Notebook	Clamshell	Capacitive

3M Multitouch Developer Kit

November 11, 09 //

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If you’re a developer looking for a drop in monitor for coding Windows 7 Multitouch applications, 3M has a kit for you. This 19″ monitor may seem very pricey at $1499, but keep in mind this is huge for a capacitive display. Normally monitors this large will have an optical tracking system for the touchpoints, leaving you with 2-4 touch points at best. This capacitive glass-front display is good for a full 10-point multi-touch experience. Check the site for more details and videos of the monitor in action.

Where the Multitouch Devices Are

October 22, 09 //

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Windows 7 is out and if you’re like me you want to know where the new multitouch hardware is. Well here’s a running list of all the hardware I know of so far.

When it comes to multitouch methods, capacitive is going to give you the best results and most touch points. Optical is going to be the runner-up and round out the bigger monitors, and resistive is going to be last IMHO.

Make	Model	Platform	Form Factor	Technology
Acer	Aspire AS5738PG	Notebook	Clamshell	Capacitive
Acer	Aspire Z5610	Desktop	All-in-One	Optical
Asus	Eee PC T91	Netbook	Netbook	Resistive
Dell	SX2210T 21.5” Monitor	Monitor		Optical
Dell	Studio One 19	Desktop	All-in-One	Optical
Dell	Latitude XT2	Notebook	Tablet	Capacitive
Fujitsu	Lifebook T4310	Notebook	Tablet	Capacitive
Fujitsu	Lifebook T4410	Notebook	Tablet	Capacitive
Fujitsu	LifeBook 5010	Notebook	Tablet	Capacitive
Fujitsu	DeskPower F Series	Desktop	All-in-One	Optical
Gateway	Gateway One ZX4800	Desktop	All-in-One	Optical
HP	HP 21.5” Compaq L2105tm	Monitor		Optical
HP	HP 42” LD4200tm	Monitor		Optical
HP	TouchSmart 600t	Desktop	All-in-One	Optical
HP	TouchSmart 300z	Desktop	All-in-One	Optical
HP	TouchSmart TX2	Notebook	Tablet	Capacitive
HP	TouchSmart dx9100	Desktop	All-in-One	Optical
Lenovo	ThinkPad X200	Notebook	Tablet	Capacitive
Lenovo	ThinkPad T400	Notebook	Clamshell	Capacitive
Medion	X9613	Desktop	All-in-One	Optical
Sony	VAIO L	Desktop	All-in-One	Optical
Toshiba	Satellite U505	Notebook	Clamshell	Capacitive
Toshiba	Satellite M505	Notebook	Clamshell	Capacitive

HP TouchSmart TX2 Multitouch Laptop

October 14, 09 //

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I stopped by HP’s Smart Home to see the refreshed TouchSmart TX2 Tablet/Laptop. The HP TouchSmart TX2 laptop has been my main (work) PC now for several months and it’s easily the most versatile laptop I’ve ever had. It’s a laptop, it’s a Tablet PC, it’s got multitouch, Dual Core, removable Lightscribe DVD burner, removable remote control, thumbprint reader, even dual headphone jacks. Best of all, the starting price of $700 (the previous TX2 has been on sale for less) it’s more what you would expect to pay for a tricked-out netbook. But with Dual Core and 8GB of DDR3 RAM possible, it will run circles around a netbook. For those who think they won’t use multitouch, this is a great way to dip your toes in the water, but be prepared to intuitively smudge the screen of every other laptop you use thereafter. You can also see my video on the consumer TouchSmart and business TouchSmart.

HP Touchsmart 9100 Multitouch Business PC

October 14, 09 //

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When I heard Microsoft’s Brion Taylor would be visiting the HP Smart Home to see the new TouchSmart hardware, I grabbed a camera and tagged along. This hardware refresh has some significant improvements including better multitouch detection, ambient light, Blu-Ray, TV Tuners and HP software. For consumers, there is the 20″ TouchSmart 300 at $899, and the 23″ TouchSmart 600 ($1049) (see that video here). The 600 has the best options for a more robust processor, different TV Tuners. Both have HDMI inputs on the side for your Xbox 1080p gaming goodness. For business users there is the TouchSmart 9100 ($1299), with DVI output instead of HDMI. There is also a refreshed TouchSmart TX2 laptop, you can see a video on that here.

These launch with Windows 7 starting October 22nd with the TouchSmart 300 launching on November 1.

A Look at HP TouchSmart 300 and 600

October 14, 09 //

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When I heard Microsoft’s Brion Taylor would be visiting the HP Smart Home to see the new TouchSmart hardware, I grabbed a camera and tagged along. This hardware refresh has some significant improvements including better multitouch detection, ambient light, Blu-Ray, TV Tuners and HP software. For consumers, there is the 20″ TouchSmart 300 at $899, and the 23″ TouchSmart 600 ($1049). The 600 has the best options for a more robust processor, different TV Tuners. Both have HDMI inputs on the side for your Xbox 1080p gaming goodness. For business users there is the TouchSmart 9100 ($1299), with DVI output instead of HDMI (see that video here). There is also a refreshed TouchSmart TX2 laptop, you can see a video on that here.

These launch with Windows 7 starting October 22nd with the TouchSmart 300 launching on November 1.

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