Top ten touch screen uses – now you’ve seen it all

Touch screen technology is creeping into all the nooks and crannies of society and it seems that every industry is getting a piece of the action. Here’s the top 10 of the craziest, funniest and most innovative touch screens applications in the industry today.

10 – Giant virtual air hockey

Touch Screen Air Hockey

If you ever fancy a game of giant virtual air hockey then UI Centric’s 103″ multi touch table is for you. Using a virtual mallet controlled by the player’s finger contestants battle it out hitting a virtual puck on a Panasonic plasma surface with a U-Touch overlay. Check out people thrashing it out on a demo table at ISE Amsterdam.

Multitouch software by http://www.uicentric.co.uk

9 – Magical interactive surfaces

Interactive Floor

It’s not every day you get to walk on the moon, kick through flowers, play football, get chased by crabs or reveal hidden messages that aren’t even there, but this is what people in Japan are having great fun doing. EyeClick have created interactive surfaces that react to human touch; whether it’s a floor, wall, window, screen or table top, audiences are being captivated this eye-popping, mind-boggling magical technology. See people walk on the moon and doing a few more random things below

8 – iBar – largest multitouch touch screen

This cool interactive multitouch bar-counter will keep people happily queuing or should I say playing, at the bar for hours. Its clever tracking system detects every object that touches its surface and using integrated video-projectors it projects each object back onto the counter’s surface as a light form. The projected glass, cup, mobile phone, car key, business card or even hand then interacts with the movements made by people at the counter creating impressive, colourful lighting effects. At 10 meters long it is the largest multitouch touch screen ever made.

Take a look at the following You Tube Video

http://www.i-bar.ch/en/info/

7 – Touch screen dinners

Baggers an innovative and slightly bizarre restaurant in Nuremberg, Germany, has taken to serving its customers through a touch screen and winding rail system. Customers choose and order their meals from their table using a touch screen which then sends the order to the kitchen on the floor above. When the meals are ready the kitchen shoots them down a rail on covered plates where each dish slides to the customer’s seat. This wacky touch screen and rail system actually makes for an efficient and speedy eating experience and you can even check your e-mail while you wait.

6 – The Touch Screen Turntable

DJs can now loop, sample and scratch wave forms using a touch screen console called the ATTIGO TT. The touch screen turntable lets DJs manipulate and play music just as they would on a standard record turntable. It was created by Scott Hobbs, a student at Dundee University studying innovative product design. All the normal features are present and are at the DJs fingertips instead of being locked up on a computer screen. Preview a demo

5 – Step into the virtual world with Warcraft Multitouch

Game players can now dominate their on screen rivals using their own physical strength. In the Multi-Touch Warcraft game powered by PQ Labs, players use their fingers to navigate the on screen environment and their fists to attack the enemy. They’re not quite jumping into computer screens yet, but virtual world characters are reacting to real world physical actions without the need for menus or commands. Check it out on You Tube – Multi-Touch Screen PQLabs iTable Dominates the Warcraft III

Source http://Multi-Touch-Screen.Net

4 – Dual touch screen laptop

Canova Dual Screen laptop

This revolutionary Canova dual touch screen laptop made no.1 on List phobia’s top ten 10 Futuristic Concept Laptop Designs. The usual screen and keyboard has been replaced by two easy to use touch screens that you can reposition to suit what you’re doing whether it’s every day computing tasks, game playing, sketching and reading from the laptops as if it were a newspaper. Have a look at http://www.v12design.com/

3 – Real life Minority Report touch screens

Minority Report

In Spielberg’s Minority Report Tom Cruise even dazzled the guys when he used his hands to control on screen images. Versions of this type of multitouch technology are now wowing crowds at trade fairs around the world including at CEBIT 2008 where visitors spent hours moving, flipping and resizing images on a giant, although not quite so futuristic, multitouch screen. No doubt this technology is coming to a trade show near you.
Watch the Minority report movie clip at
and CEBIT video at

2 – 38 Cute Animals & 1 Cool Screen

Purely for the fun of it this one gets a top spot as the silliest and cutest use of a touch screen. Check out hamsters at the cinema, hedgehogs controlling the world and chicks on the dance floor all via the UltraTouch from Samsung. Watch and laugh at

For more information, check out the S8300 site at http://ultratouch.samsungmobile.com/

1 – A touch screen that can bend

Flexible Touch Screen

Scientists in Arizona have come up a touch screen that can bend. Imagine ‘James Bond’ style flexible touch screen wrist phones or ‘Back to the Future’ e-newspapers that can be read comfortably and folded away after use. It’s thought that this technology could hit the shops in the next 18 months. Now that would be cool. Read more

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