Tablet PC and Ultra-Mobile PC News, Forums, and Video Reviews  
       
 
 


 

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

« Getting In Depth with GesturesMain  | Simplified Electronics Recycling »

Wacom Goes Capacitive Touch

- Rob Bushway

At CES 2008, we brought you word that Wacom was going to be bringing capacitive touch out this year. Today, Wacom is announcing their capacitive touch technology and will be unveiling it May 20 - 22 at the International Society for Information Display Exhibition in Los Angeles.

Here are the details via PRNewsWire:

Wacom introduced new innovation in capacitive touchscreen technology, called Reversing Ramped Field Capacitive (RRFC) touch, that will be publicly unveiled at the International Society for Information Display Exhibition, booth #1129, May 20 to 22, 2008 in Los Angeles, California.

Wacom's patent-pending technology employs newly designed low-power circuitry and reversing ramped electro-static fields to provide pinpoint precision and drift-free performance to touchscreen users. The technology can be integrated into dual-input applications with Wacom's market-leading EMR pen-input technology for Tablet PC OEMs or work by itself on other platforms that require only a finger touch interface. With this newly developed technology, Wacom can provide true flexibility to OEM partners seeking best-in-class interface solutions.

"Our new proprietary RRFC touch technology is exciting on a couple of fronts," said Shawn Gray, Wacom's Director of Touchscreen Operations. "New controller processing methods and system design provide extremely accurate pointing at much lower power consumption levels and without increased cost. These factors and others, such as ease of integration and stability, position Wacom RRFC touch as a natural alternative to resistive, surface acoustic wave and infrared touch technologies. Any OEM should seriously look at Wacom's solution when deciding to move beyond resistive touch solutions on portable devices or when seeking to find new and exciting capacitive touch performance in AC-powered applications."



4/22/2008 3:57 PM MST  

Wacom Goes Capacitive Touch     Comments [10]  |  Digg This |  del.icio.us |  Citations 
Tuesday, April 22, 2008 4:01:23 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)
This should open real competition with N-Trig.

It's going to be interesting to see how this all works out.
Paul Harrigan
Tuesday, April 22, 2008 4:50:57 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)
What would make this technology perfect would be the ability to detect a hovering finger to move mouse and click by pressing down, and holding to right click(like default pen setting).
John
Tuesday, April 22, 2008 5:25:54 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)
Maybe it's just me, but there's something about the way this announcement is worded that makes me think we don't know the whole story... yet...
Steve S
Tuesday, April 22, 2008 6:31:56 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)
Still not an all-in-one package solution. As the excerpt states:"The technology can be integrated into dual-input applications with Wacom's market-leading EMR pen-input technology" EMR requires a separate sensor, whereas N-trig is an all-in-one solution
Howard
Tuesday, April 22, 2008 11:16:16 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)
Is someone in the LA area can check it out and report their findings about this new thing and maybe when to see it in a production tablet.
thomas
Wednesday, April 23, 2008 12:32:47 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)
Thomas,

The problem would probably be getting admission to the exhibition. I expect we will be hearing from OEM's very quickly thereafter.

Paul
Paul Harrigan
Wednesday, April 23, 2008 2:51:09 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)
well, there is no word on multitouch?-no competition for n-trig in this field?
probably they integrate their emr pen technology because it is way more accurate than capacitive touch.
if the future tablet operates in pen only mode you do not need to think about vectoring.....
michael
Wednesday, April 23, 2008 5:59:49 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)
I have little doubt that the capacitive touch that Wacom will implement will allow for multi-touch with a driver change - the only real reason why they would not be advertising it would be because Windows doesn't exactly support multitouch at this time (two or more cursors, can't plug in 2 mice and get 2 cursors either).

But still - August of this year, Lenovo X300 Tablet with Montevina and the new Wacom capacitive sensor would be AMAZING!!!
wickedpheonix
Wednesday, April 23, 2008 10:29:05 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)
My husband is going to the SID conference - he's an optical engineer. I'm going to try to sweet talk him into checking out the Wacom booth and giving a special report for GBM.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008 5:51:50 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)
This is good news! I plan on attending.

Steve Hoffman
Active Ink Software
Comments are closed.


       





Copyright 2008 GottaBeMobile.com
 
     

 
     
 
     
 
     
 
The vision of GottaBeMobile.com is to become the definitive source for mobile computing news, reviews, and commentary, as well as the home for the mobile community to discover and discuss these issues. When you think mobile, think GottaBeMobile.com.

The mobile computing space is one of the fastest growing and fastest changing spaces, and indeed industries worldwide. Within that constantly evolving and face paced world, GBM covers a range of spaces and technologies including Tablet PCs, UMPCs, MIDs, Ultra-portable computers, operating systems, software, natural human interfaces, accessories, mobile connectivity solutions, and other solutions that appeal to the mobile user.
     
Featured Stories
     
 
Latest GBM Shortcut Video Reviews and InkShows

 
News Categories
     
Twitter, Google Tools, etc
News Archive