multi-touch

Microsoft Research working on a capacitive touch screen that works through clothing

February 14, 2012 | By Surur

microsoftresearch Microsoft Research is working on a capacitive sensor technology which would allow users to control their smartphone without removing their phone from their pocket.

In the prototype consists of a custom multi-touch capacitive sensor mounted on the back of a smartphone, which appears to be a Samsung Focus, but with low level access to the existing capacitive sensors in the phone no additional hardware would be required.

While the creators of the technology envision users being able to respond to text messages by touch and also without removing the phone from your pocket, the other scenario of being able to control music playback without removing the phone from your pocket sounds even better, and wont make people wonder why you appear to be fondling your groin

Read more about the technology at Microsoft Research here.

Via NY Times.com

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Microsoft collaborates with Synaptics for 10 point multi-touch screens

October 14, 2010 | By Surur

ClearPad_01 Microsoft has certified Synaptic’s ClearPad™ capacitive touchscreen solutions for use with Windows Phone 7.

Synaptics offer high-performance capacitive touchscreen solutions for handheld devices—for navigation, scrolling, virtual controls, and other intuitive gestures, and their ClearPad range offers up to 10 point multi-touch.

The move will make it easier for OEMs to incorporate Synaptics solution, allows OEMS to create differentiated products with a competitive advantage.

"The collaboration between leading solution providers such as Synaptics and Microsoft builds the foundation necessary to deliver a unique mobile experience," said Stan Swearingen,senior vice president of strategic technology and corporate development. "Our ClearPad solution, combined with Windows Phone 7, is another exciting step in improving the mobile experience."

Microsoft has partnered with other component providers such as Qualcomm to make it easier for OEM’s to create devices with consistent and reliable performance and increase speed to market, and by reducing development cost in both software and hardware make turning out a perfect Windows phone 7 handset every time increasingly easy.

Via WMExperts.com

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Touch Gestures For Windows Phone 7

July 23, 2010 | By WenWP

Pocketnow just recently made a list of gestures that will find their way on our next device, and some of them seem very cool. The list spans from the basic double tap, and pan to the slightly cooler flick and more. The gestures are not as cool as the ounces you can currently do with the HTC HD2 and LMT launcher, but it still does just about everything the others are doing.

Here is the list they composed:

The single touch gestures include:
1. the Tap which we already know by now with Finger up executing the action. A tap also stops any type of content from moving on the screen;
2. the Double Tap which toggles between in and out zoom states of a control or an application;
3. the Pan which is used to either move content on the screen or reorder a specific item;
4. the Flick that moves content from one area to another area. The difference between Flick and Pan is that the Flick ends with lifting the finger off the screen.
5. the Touch and Hold, which we are used to calling long tap and is used to display a context menu or options page for an item.

Are these gestures enough for you or do you have better ones in mind like maybe a multi-touch based application launcher.

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LMT V.8 Multi-Touch To the MAX

May 24, 2010 | By WenWP

The new world of Mobile technology was ever changed when the iPhone was released with the greatest Multi-Touch software. Well XDA member l3v5y has brought that and more to the Windows Mobile world. Him and a friend have created an application called LMT launcher, and what makes this application special is the ability to launch anything with the use of two finger gestures. It is a Multi-Touch based application launcher for the Windows Phone device the HTC HD2.

The application is truly amazing and after using it for about one month now on my HD2, I love it, and here is what the creator had to say about it.

Use the controller as a generic gamepad for e.g. FPSEce, morphgear or flash games. The controller is multitouch capable and converts the touches to key events. You can define the keys to be sent via registry value "ControllerKeys": Down, up, left, right, 1, 2, A, B, C, D, X, Y. The button "R" toggles between portrait and landscape mode and partial and full screen lock. The button "X" deactivates the controller mode. The registry value "ControllerVibrate" defines the vibrate status: 0=off, 1=default, >1=time in ms. To quickly install and configure LMTs controller with FPSEce and morphgear I made a fpse.ini file and a registry file for morphgear. The howto:
FPSEce:

install FPSEce on internal memory

before first start replace the existing fpse.ini with the attached one

now start FPSEce

load a rom, start LMTs controller and have fun!

Morphgear:

install morphgear and e.g. the generator plugin on internal memory

start morphgear and close it again

import the attached registry file

now restart morphgear again

load rom, start LMTs controller and have fun!

These aren’t the perfect settings since I only patched the key inputs to work properly with LMTs controller but it’s a good base for further settings. If anyone has better settings, it would be nice if he could post them here…
Settings
There are 3 blacklists available to exclude processes from taskswitching (BlackListSwitch), from the closeApp feature (BlackListClose) and to deactivate LMT when the process is the current foreground app (BlackListAll). Just add the full path to the process to the multistring. There is also 1 whitelist available: WhiteListBack. If Opera 9 is the current foreground app and you activate the internal command “Back”, LMT will send a special key to navigate back in Opera.
With the registry value “SingleTouchGestureSupport” you are able to activate or deactivate the single touch gestures (Square, Diamond and Delete) and with the registry value “TapAndHoldGestureSupport” you can activate a special feature where you can draw all dual touch gestures with one hand: Just tap with one finger somewhere on the screen and draw "one part" of the multitouch gesture with another finger. Then release the tapped finger and the gesture will be recognized.
Changelog 0.8

Fixed rotation feature

Controller button "R" now toggles between: Portrait (fg app touchable) -> Landscape (fg app touchable) -> Portrait (full screen lock) -> Landscape (full screen lock)

Added Mario feature in controller mode: The areas between A and B, C and D and X and Y will lead to both keyevents. When you e.g. run in Mario Bros. with button "C" and jump with button "D" you can run with "C" and then slide your finger right. Then "C" and "D" will be both pressed. Mario will run and jump…

Fixed rotate and exit button in controller mode (no interference with fg app)

Added dword reg value "ShowOverlay": 0=overlays deactivated, 1=overlays activated with default time, >1=overlays activated with custom time (ms)

Optimized square gestures

Removed arrow gestures

Added 5 new mt gestures: Double Diamond and Swipe left/right, right/left, up/down, down/up

Added 1 st gesture: Diamond

Added \Windows\services.exe to BlackListClose

Set new defaults for gestures (see registry!)

LMT is now rotation arware and works also in landscape mode (only 270°)

Controller supports now real landscape mode (e.g. for flash games)

You can try this out and download it over at XDA

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Cypress Announces That Windows® Phone 7 Series Includes Native Support for TrueTouch™ Touchscreen Solution

April 22, 2010 | By Surur

Cypress demonstrating their large format multi-touch technology

Press Release: Cypress Semiconductor Corp. today announced that the TrueTouch™ touchscreen solution is natively supported in the soon to be released Windows^®Phone 7 Series mobile handset platform. This support allows handset manufacturers using the Windows Phone 7 Series to implement exciting capacitive touchscreen interfaces without the need for developing external drivers or custom software development.

“Cypress is proud to see the TrueTouch solution selected for native support within this exciting new platform,” said Dhwani Vyas, vice president of the User Interface Business Unit at Cypress. “Of the many touchscreen products available, none offers the advanced features and flexibility of TrueTouch. The interface within Windows Phone 7 Series enables manufacturers to take advantage of these attributes quickly and seamlessly. This software support, coupled with our broad family of devices, is going to significantly reduce time-to-market for the next generation of capacitive-touch-enabled Windows Phone 7 Series phones.”

Cypress recently announced its next-generation high performance TMA300 multi-touch all-point family. This controller provides best-in-class scan times for true multi-finger touch and superior signal-to-noise ratio for the most demanding touchscreen applications. Cypress has also recently demonstrated advanced functions such as 1 mm stylus and large touchscreen support. Additional information about the TrueTouch solution is available at www.cypress.com/go/TrueTouch.

The flexible TrueTouch solution allows customers to rapidly develop leading-edge solutions without having to buy turnkey modules. They have a choice of using touch sensors (glass or film) and LCDs from preferred partners, and can develop innovative mechanical designs ranging from flat to curved surfaces of varying thickness. In addition, TrueTouch devices offer Cypress’s legendary noise immunity with patented capacitive sensing technology that enables flawless operation in noisy RF and LCD environments.

About Cypress

Cypress delivers high-performance, mixed-signal, programmable solutions that provide customers with rapid time-to-market and exceptional system value. Cypress offerings include the flagship PSoC® programmable system-on-chip families and derivatives such as PowerPSoC® solutions for high-voltage and LED lighting applications, CapSense® touch sensing and TrueTouch™ solutions for touchscreens. Cypress is the world leader in USB controllers, including the high-performance West Bridge® solution that enhances connectivity and performance in multimedia handsets. Cypress is also a leader in high-performance memories and programmable timing devices. Cypress serves numerous markets including consumer, mobile handsets, computation, data communications, automotive, industrial and military. Cypress trades on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol CY. Visit Cypress online at www.cypress.com.

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Multi-touch for Resistive Devices SDK Available For Developers

April 19, 2010 | By WenWP

Multi-touch seems to becoming one of the greatest features on smartphones in today’s market, and now all Windows Phones can have a variant of the feature. XDA has managed to produce something a little more special than the pervious, which was also very good. Today anaadoul from XDA finally released his SDK that can be used to create apps that simulate Multi-touch for devices that cannot do it on their own.

The current features include pinch to zoom, which is the most popular of all multi-touch features. The fallowing features also include drag, two finger scroll and more.

Here is the release note:

In December last year, i posted an Alpha version of this SDK. Now it is mature enough to announce it as Beta. This SDK allows developers to build Dual-Touch enabled applications. so let’s get into action.
Features:
Pinch to Zoom Support
Drag (swipe) support.
Replacement events for the mouse move fires only when a single finger detected.
Multiple events based on gestures.
Performance optimized, memory footprint is minimal.
To use this SDK you will need Visual Studio Professional or better. start a new Smart Device Project, and add the SDK to your references.
The SDK is consists of only one object, which is DualTouchSDK. We will need one instance of this class for every control that supports pinch to zoom or drag in your application.
There are several methods, properties and events that can be utilized in order to achieve multitouch effect. i have done my best to make this as easy as possible, my code is now complex but it is necessary to achieve easy implementation.

Read More

Via:Mobileblab

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Apple sued for multi-touch patents

March 31, 2010 | By Surur

In a delicious twist on Apple’s attack on HTC, the company itself is now being sued by a small Taiwanese firm for infringing on its multi-touch patents.

Just like Apple, Elan Microelectronics Corp. is asking the U.S. trade agency to ban the import and sale of both the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad due to patent infringement.

Elan’s complaint filed with the U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington claims Apple “knowingly and deliberately” used Elan’s technology, while continuing to introduce infringing products, the company claims in the complaint.

“Our goal is to protect our technology and to stop sales of those products in the U.S.,” Dennis Liu, spokesman for Hsinchu, Taiwan-based Elan.

Elan makes chips and touch-screens, and has previously won against Synaptics Inc. in 2008 in Federal Court in California, claiming they infringed the same technology and has previously also sued Apple in April 2009 in federal court in California claiming infringement of the same patent.

Apple declined to comment.

More at BusinessWeek here.

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Official word on HD2 multitouch API

March 12, 2010 | By l3v5y

When the HD2 first got announced, I sent HTC an email asking whether or not there would be a public API for MultiTouch.

Today, I got a reply…

Dear —
Unfortunately your email got overlooked. Please could you contact our head office in Taiwan for further information:
HTC Headquarters
23 Xinghua Rd., Taoyuan 330,
Taiwan, R. O. C.
Tel: +886-3-3753252
Fax: +886-3-3753251
Best regards
—
HTC

Not very helpful is it?

Luckily multitouch has already been hacked, so we don’t really need a proper API, but it would have been useful.

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LMT – Multitouch launcher

March 3, 2010 | By l3v5y

We mentioned this before, but LMT, built by noname81 of XDA-Developers and I has recently had an update.

It now supports things like single touch gestures, as well as customisation of what’s launched,.

0.4 is the currently available version, and 0.5 should be out shortly.

We’re also looking to help developers use multitouch, so if there are any about who could help with “what features do you want?”, that would be great!

Download it from here.

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Touch The Music(Guitar Hero Like Game) updated

February 13, 2010 | By WenWP

The popular guitar based game for Windows Mobile has been going without an update for a while now, but it seems that the developers has a new release available. The application has not changed much from the last update, but if you were not aware of what that included, then this is truly new to you.

Continue reading →

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LMT Launcher 0.2 released!

February 11, 2010 | By l3v5y

As of a few days ago, my Multitouch launcher was released, and today, v 0.2 is released.

It has been developed in co-operation with noname81 from XDA-Developers, and is available for download now on XDA-Developers.

It features a few more gestures than shown in the video above, including arrows and a “learn” mode.

- DoubleSquare: Close LMT
- DoubleQuestionMark: Learn mode; the following gesture will be connected to the process related to the foreground window. Next time the gesture is done, LMT will start the connected process
- DoubleLineUp: Close the current process
- DoubleLineDown: Connect e.g. to TaskFacade as a “Multitouch Taskmanager”
- DoubleLineLeft, DoubleLineRight
- DoubleArrowLeft, DoubleArrowRight

It also features the ability to send “back” messages when in things like Opera, so you can swipe to go back a page

It can be downloaded from here.

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LMT – new Multi-Touch application launcher for the HTC HD2 being developed

February 6, 2010 | By Surur

Our own resident hacker, l3v5y, who was instrumental in figuring out the multi-touch implementation in the HTC HD2, allowing the implementation of multi-touch controls in Morphgear and other emulators for example, is currently hard at work on his next great app – LMT launcher.

LMT is a very simple application at present – all it does is look out for a specific multi-touch gesture on the HTC HD2’s screen, in this case a downward swipe with 2 fingers, and run an application.

However, even at this basic level, it already solves a major problem with the HTC HD2 – the lack of mappable buttons, and allows for the very efficient use of an application like TaskFacade, the great Windows Mobile task switcher (which came along years before the Pre btw).

The software is not quiet ready for release yet, and l3v5y intends to add further gestures such as rotation for example, so keep an eye on WMPoweruser.com for further developments.

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