“Albatron is one of the first companies demonstrating what appears to be a production ready multi-touch device…Albatron integrated the technology into a 22″ LCD providing a resolution of 1680 x 1050 pixels. According to Doncevski, multi-touch is not affected by typical touch-screen limitations. Screen sizes of 24” and above simply require a third sensor on top of the screen…Pricing and availability has not been announced, but we were told that physical price of this multi-touch screen is only 20% above a regular LCD.”
Of this desktop-sized monitor Ryan Block of Engadget says: “Don’t count on multi-touch being a huge feature for any computers used primarily at a desk.”
Well, beg to differ with you Ryan, but think of the screen laying flat or slightly at an angle. Multi-touch sure gets more interesting. As I see it, just like we needed special landscape/portrait mounts for monitors, we’re going to need special horizontal mounts for multi-touch monitors now too.
Right off the bat Paul says, “I don’t think this usage model is going to be particularly compelling for most people.”
However, he continues, “when you’re sitting in front of a traditional PC display at work, a mouse and keyboard will almost always make the most sense. Move into a meeting room, however, and a touch-enabled Surface-based interactive wall might offer the best way to get your point across. And while standing in line at a Starbucks or grocery store, you might want to quickly triage your email using a chiclet keyboard-based phone or a touch-screen enabled iPhone. None of these interfaces replace each other. They just complement each other and form the pieces of what will be a very pervasive relationship between you and the various computing resources you do and will regularly access.”
Agreed 100%.
I don’t know exactly what Microsoft is thinking in terms of multi-touch, but here’s part of my interpretation and how Paul’s commentary fits in with what I think Microsoft is actually doing.
First, what I think where Microsoft is going with multi-touch is not to suggest that most users will switch to it. I don’t think that’s the case at all. However, there are cases where multi-touch is reasonable and for these cases, we’ll now have a standard model (hopefully) for interacting with devices via multi-touch techniques. This is a big win. Standardization counts.
Small devices, like the iPhone, where screen real-estate is a premium is one good place for multi-touch. Very large devices are too, such as interactive whiteboards or horizontal surfaces, like a display built into a conference table. Multi-touch also makes sense on a Tablet PC where there might already by single point touch support.
Might more notebooks support multi-touch gestures, kind of like the new Macs are with their touchpads? Sure. But like Paul says its unlikely that this feature will blow people away in most cases.
So this part I agree with Paul on.
Where I think he’s missing something “new” is with respect to multi-user interaction. For all practical purposes we don’t have this yet. If I understand where Microsoft is going with this, multi-touch will enable more than one user to interact with a whiteboard or with a display built into a table or even a touch-enabled game on a notebook folded down.
With multi-user support there are going to be some interesting new types of programs. I think it also will encourage Microsoft to step up and free the restriction that windows have to be only in one orientation.
Finally, there are some apps where multi-touch just makes sense. Ever thought about how limiting current onscreen keyboards are because they don’t support multi-touch? Control keys and the like have to be toggled because you can’t press more than one thing at a time on the screen.
And yeah, there are some virtual instruments where multi-touch makes sense too. You may not be enamored by these, but take a few minutes to think of various types of virtual gadgets and the like that make more sense if there is multi-touch. Hint: Think games.
Are all of these reasons to dump your existing models of user interaction? No. Like Paul says multi-touch will be another option. I’m betting it’ll also enable some richer apps in some cases, richer collaboration in others, and convergence in interaction behaviors across a variety of devices.
Put together multi-touch is a compelling addition to Windows. Did Microsoft make the case for it at the D conference. Nope. The demos weren’t fresh, people had seen this stuff before, and many of the areas where I think multi-touch makes sense weren’t presented. Well, at least people walked away with the impression that Microsoft was arguing that multi-touch was going to catch fire on notebooks. Hopefully, developers will fill in the void and once Windows 7 beta starts shipping begin to come up with some creative uses for multi-touch.
Although it would have been cool for at least once for Bill Gates to use a Tablet PC during one of his keynotes, he at least doesn’t fail to mention them. In his final keynote as full-time Microsoft chairman at TechEd, Gates talks of Tablets and education:
“I think of every student having a device that avoids the need for paper textbooks. The Tablet device will let them take notes, record audio, connect to the Internet. It’ll be superior in every way and yet it can’t be purely keyboard based. It has to have this touch and pen as well.”
In case you’re wondering, he didn’t say much more about Windows 7 other than referring to the multi-touch demoed last week at D. He did add:
“We’ve also got the pen capability, that we’re taking to a whole new level in terms of easy recognition and how that is implemented in the hardware.”
Not sure if he was referring to Windows 7 here what’s currently available in Vista. My guess is the latter, but it’s hard to tell.
I was glad he finally is mentioning vision in more detail. This has been a very lacking aspect of Microsoft’s interaction strategy if you ask me. Surface, TouchWall and the like are all beginning to use cameras, though there’s lots more than can and should be done. I’d like to see a whole new vision processing capabilities added to the .NET Framework.
It’s interesting to look back over the years and see various technologies applied to solving problems, but not finding favor until later….kind of like this 1997 effort on using a laser rangefinder to track touch points on a large surface and Microsoft’s TouchWall. The two implementations are different, but it’s interesting to see where the overlap is and how people have been struggling with coming up with low-cost touch solutions for awhile.
Their overall reactions to multi-touch were summed up by Leo Laporte, “I don’t think I saw anything.”
I have a fairly long post in the oven that talks about my thoughts on multi-touch, where it makes sense, and my suggestions to Microsoft on how to better make its case.
After scanning through Twitter, blogs, and the like for any commentary on Windows 7’s forthcoming multi-touch feature, I’m coming to the conclusion that many people don’t get it.
Some of us do. I need to put together a blog post that collects up many of my thoughts on multi-touch and why it has value, but for now, a cartoon will have to do:
The wizdom of starting Windows 7 marketing with multi-touch is not looking so great.
Check out this article by Wired and the comments from readers that follow about Microsoft’s demo of multi-touch this week. Sure, a bunch of the comments are trolling. That’s the nature of the Internet like it or not.
However, I think people have a good point when they say first and foremost that they want an easy to use, stable OS. They’re not looking for more “cool” features that they’ll never use. They no longer want to spend hours and hours tweaking this or that or having to reinstall the OS every three months. I think that’s the way things have been going, although no doubt Vista hit some very big bumps as it launched.
My guess is that Windows 7 will continue along this path and make Windows even more stable. There’s no reason to stick with XP. That’s just me.
Now as to whether multi-touch has value, I think the problem here is that Microsoft could have done a much better job of showcasing it. First, the apps looked like they’d been thrown together in a couple days and also were quite similar if not exactly the same to several already shown on the Surface computer. And Dell itself had already shown multi-touch publicly before.
Besides showing something unique, I think they should have shown something that illustrated better the value of multi-touch on a notebook. We’ve all seen pinching maps and rotating photos, but how does this add value to a notebook? Why would I want to upgrade my notebook to multi-touch to get this capability? Where’s the inspiring takeaway moment?
For instance, if you’re going to say multi-touch is useful for drawing, have someoe interesting paint an inspiring picture on stage–or Ballmer using for a whiteboard–or something. Or if you’re going to suggest that multi-touch can be used to play a virtual instrument–have someone on stage that can really play and play something interesting. Or if you’re going to say that multi-touch helps you navigate Windows, then show that. Whatever it is, inspire us.
One other suggestion is that I think they should have been holding the Tablet PC (in Tablet mode) in their arms when demoing. It’s still quite dramatic when someone picks up a Tablet from a table, flips it into Tablet mode, and then starts using it. They should have done that. It always gets me when people use locked down Tablet PCs in a demo. Several people have argued that they don’t see the value of touch on their laptop–well, start by emphasizing multi-touch on a Tablet instead by making sure people see that it’s a Tablet–and there’s no threat of having them to forcably upgrade their current laptop for Windows 7.
I’ve been scanning through the various Windows 7-slash-multi-touch news today. There’s too much to link to anymore. Most of it is polite although most reader comments are fairly critical.
I bet if I were to ask Microsoft, they’d say no. If I were to apply some common sense, I’d say yes.
You see, it’s very important to learn about multi-touch support in the OS early on–especially for us Tablet developers, who are probably some of the most likely early adopters of this technology. Although we can throw just about anything together at the last minute, we want to do more than just “make do,” we want to do something awesome. And for this we need some information and time.
You see, although multi-touch could just be tossed into Microsoft Paint, for instance, it’s not the most inspiring use of the technology. There’s lots more to it than that. Look at Surface or the Office Labs work to see how un-little-windows like a great multi-touch app can be.
Here are just a few of the many developer questions that I think are now before us:
Is multi-touch going to be an equal citizen to mouse events or are these more application-responsible events a.k.a. Google’s multi-touch SDK?
What model are we working with here? Will someone be able to plug in multiple mice and be able to simulate things? Or have two users working within a desktop at the same time?
Is there a notion of clustering or grouping of multi-touch events or IDs or is this all up to the application programmer?
What performance are we talking about? I can imagine that it would vary greatly with the device, but are we talking about some noticable lag or possibly 1/4″ or more of error? This impacts how applications will be written tremendously.
Are we talking COM/.NET like in the Tablet PC SDK?
How many touch points? Again, I’m sure this varies by digitzer, but are there going to be limits, and how do we ask the “driver” what they are? Similarly, how can we tell if a surface supports multi-touch?
Window scaling and rotation make a lot of sense wtih multi-touch. Is this going to be supported like in the early Longhorn demos? Or does a WPF app, for instance, need to own the screen and manage its own rotation?
I can think of a dozen more questions, but I’ll leave it at this for now.
I hope Microsoft is going to reveal more multi-touch developer details at the forthcoming TechEd event. PDC, which is the last week of October, is getting on the late side–particularly if Windows 7 is going to be shipping before the end of 2009. Let’s say Microsoft tries to hit the holiday season, which it missed in Vista. That would place a launch date around October. That’s one year to digest the new technology, get the hardware to develop for it, (is Dell going to work with developers to do this? So far I see no indication of any community efforts on Dell’s part) come up with something phenomenal, implement and test it, and get it ready for Windows 7 launch. It’s doable, but come on. In terms of the information developers need does it really make sense to wait so long? You’re already talking with the hardware manufactures, so why not us developers?
Update: I don’t see on the TechEd site any indication that multi-touch will be discussed there, however, PDC looks like it will have at least one multi-touch session. From the PDC site:
“WINDOWS 7: TOUCH COMPUTING
In Windows 7, innovative touch and gesture support will enable more direct and natural interaction in your applications. This session will highlight the new multi-touch gesture APIs and explain how you can leverage them in your applications.”
My suggestion to anyone contemplating multi-touch development: Don’t wait. Get started now, simulating what you can. You can port things later. The hands-on experience with multi-touch will more than make up for the time lost in having to port your code to whatever multi-touch model Microsoft will make available. That’s my two cents worth, anyway.
(Updated) From what I’ve seen so far it looks like it’s going to be true multi-touch. Cool. That’ll give us the industry-standard, two-fingered pinch and rotation gestures plus more. No idea if Microsoft is planning to support multiple users or if this is something applications need to handle individually.
It also looks like the water demo app and the map app are quite similar to Surface programs. Maybe this means some of Surface is being folded into Windows. Sounds like the right direction. Of course, if so, this means that the Surface team–or should I say the Surface team that works with Windows–needs to be lots more open with SDKs and the like.
No idea if there will be further extensions into the OS, such as the ability to rotate a window, which is something that’s quite natural to do particiularly on a slate held flat. Of course, with WPF this ability can be simulated, which isn’t bad, but it would be nice if it were native.
According to Engadget: “They worked with the Surface team on the multi-touch stuff. Microsoft is re-thinking the whole user interface to better accommodate multi-touch for day to day use.”
I’m hoping to see whether Michael Arrington, Engadget and the others are able to get a private viewing. I’d love to see more pictures. Everything is too sketchy at this point.
In the demo tonight, Bill Gates went on to say that user-interaction won’t stop with multi-touch: “…in the years to come, the roles of speech, vision, ink, all of those will become huge.” Agreed. Microsoft particularly needs to work on its vision features. Intel is way ahead here.
In a Michael Arrington Qik video, a Microsoft rep shows MS Paint in use with multiple fingers:
New coverage so far:
Mary Jo Foley: “I am still a non-believer. Do you want touch on your Windows notebook? I, for one, do not.”
CNet: “the new technology will work with existing touch screens”
MacRumors: “according to Microsoft, multi-touch will be “built throughout the OS”"
Gizmodo: “Looks like a LOT of the multi-touch features were culled from the Surface team, and the non-touch features look fairly similar to what’s already in Vista”
Engadget: “The taskbar seems to have been reworked a bit, and the demo was running live on a Dell Latitude XT tablet. Apparently Microsoft is reworking the whole user interface with a multitouch experience in mind.”
GigaOm: “I think if you have used iPod Touch, iPhone and Coverflow, you are not going to be as wow-ed by multi-touch, but I have to admit, that even in its rudimentary form, it looked pretty darn good.”
The Inquisitr: “Apple wooed audiences when it first demonstrated multi-touch via a track pad built into Apple laptops, but Microsoft has now one upped Apple by bringing the hands on experience of the Microsoft Surface to the small screen”
John Tokash: “the thing that excites me most about this announcement is that OS X will most likely follow suit (or preempt).”
WordPlop: “I fail to see how it will ever be useful in a Windows operating system.”
TheHoneyCombCollective: “Although super cool remember Apple first introduced the use of multi-touch into the iPhone”
Robert Scoble (Comment on TechCrunch): “I got Windows 7 on video last Thursday with the guy who invented all these surface features at Microsoft Research! Seriously, visit my qik.com/scobleizer channel”
Some tweets:
justinprine: “why bother demoing something that lacks polish when there is nothing to get excited about. what a vistaster”
topa: “Windows 7 looks good, I can now think of skipping Vista”
jasonhiner: “I wonder if Microsoft has enough time to get OEMs on board with multi-touch before Windows 7 launches? Plus, can they do it cheap enough?”
devinger1: “woohoo! Windows 7 does multitouch! This bodes well for .Net 4.0 & WPF improvements. MS needs badly to be more transparent regarding Windows 7. This is a small improvement”
podfeet: “everything they showed in Windows 7 is in the iPhone today”
OK. Time for bed. Lots of commentary tonight from lots of directions about what little bit of Windows 7 was shown.
Mary Jo Foley: “I’m hearing buzz that if Microsoft can manage to gag and tie temporarily its Chief Secrecy Officer Steven Sinofsky, the company might show off at D6 the touch technology that Microsoft is building into Windows 7.
As I and others have reported previously, it’s not just Windows Mobile 7 that is adding touch support; it is Windows 7, as well. There have been more recent leaks corroborating Microsoft’s plans to add touch support to Windows 7….
As I’m still not much of a Tablet PC fan, I must admit Microsoft’s desire to add touch to Windows is a bit baffling. Even one former Softie working to help evangelize the Tablet form factor noted that PC makers were none too keen on creating Windows machines optimized for touch.”
People aren’t interested in touch?? Heard of the iPhone?
Some miscellaneous news from the Society of Information Display (SID) conference held this last week in Los Angeles:
BetaNews: “Samsung is also introducing an 82-inch “e-board” that has a multi-touch screen the company hopes will help one day replace white boards and beam projectors. Using a 60 Hz UD LCD panel, it’s the largest multi-touch screen on the market. E-boards are expected to increase in popularity as the price of LCD production continues to decline, but don’t expect to see the screens in every office and school room any time soon.”
Samsung was also showing off “2.3-inch e-paper that uses electrodes made from carbon nanotubes for enhanced “fold-ability.” The e-paper is an Electrophoretic display with carbon nanotubes that has the advantage over standard displays that it uses reflected light and does not need to continually refresh its display. So it can even show an image when it is powered off. This has huge implications for e-Books and other carryable devices.
LG demoed a multi-touch whiteboard too, though I can’t seem to find a reference for it.
Kevin Tofel isn’t too sure about N-trig’s just announced large-display multi-touch and active digitizer. I’d love to have one. That may be in part because I like exploring new possibilities. But I think I can see some pretty compelling scenarios. I’ll leave it up to your imagination now as to what these might be. Maybe I’ll share some of my ideas later.
What I’d really like to see N-trig do is make some of these displays available to developers like me. What better way to build demand that have software written for it?
This is a research project where they are experimenting with various models for displaying and manipulating content. In the demo video shown below they are showing an infinite canvas with multi-touch merged together.
Here’s the thing though: Microsoft needs to start realizing that all these multi-touch approaches are not magical and that there’s a common set of functionality going on here. As you know I’m going ahead with building a multi-touch surface because I’m not going to wait any longer to experiment with this technology. Again, it’s not rocket science. Now to build a product, I 100% agree that there are tons of issues that would need to be worked out. But in terms of facilitating Windows developers to keep pushing the envelope, I’d like to see Microsoft make an effort to get some of this stuff out in the ecosystem. Maybe the Microsoft Research team can do this. I’d love to see it.
Anyway, here’s the big news along these lines: “TouchWall…is built on a standard version of Vista.” Yep, multi-touch is not rocket science. It’s incremental. Google is demonstrating this with TouchLib. And Microsoft is demonstrating this with TouchWall. And from what I can gather–though I’m not positive–Microsoft Surface shows us too. There’s no magic here.
Let’s get the ball rolling.
In his speech today, I think Bill Gates has the right idea about touch and surfaces: “We’re saying it will be absolutely pervasive. When I say everywhere, I mean the individual’s office, the home, the living room.”
I’d add your notebook, phone and more to his list too. It’s not just about location. It’s about natural and efficient experiences.
