According to PC Magazine a touchscreen is a display screen that is sensitive to the touch of a finger or stylus. Widely used on ATM machines, retail point-of-sale terminals, car navigation systems, medical monitors and industrial control panels, the touch screen became wildly popular on handhelds after Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007. The touchscreen is one of the easiest to use and most intuitive of all computer interfaces, a touchscreen allows users to navigate a computer system by touching icons or links on the screen.

  By combining touchscreen technology to our industry, business and large numbers of different areas, touchscreen shows its strong functions and serves for us and the whole society. It is a new kind of technology and it has its own incomparable superiority, which is determined by its special structure. The following will offer you information on how it works.

  According to Malik Sharrieff, an eHow Contributor, “the resistive system is comprised of five components, including the CRT (cathode ray tube) or screen base, the glass panel, the resistive coating, a separator dot, a conductive cover sheet and a durable top coating.” When a finger or stylus presses down on the top surface, the two metallic layers become connected (they touch), the surface acts as a pair of voltage dividers with connected outputs. This causes a change in the electrical current. The pressure from your finger causes conductive and resistive layers of circuitry to touch each other, changing the circuits’ resistance, which registers as a touch screen event that is sent to the computer controller for processing. Capacitive touch screens use a layer of capacitive material to hold an electrical charge; touching the screen changes the amount of charge at a specific point of contact. And multi touch wall recently has emerged.

  Since the emergence of touchscreen technology and the latest application of multi touch wall, it has undergone a long history. The following article will provide you with a better understanding of the complete development of touchscreen technology. By getting a clear knowledge of it, we may surprise at how wonderful achievements we have made.

  Let’s together have a general knowledge of the development of touchscreen technology and the application of multi touch wall.

1960s

Historians consider the first touch screen to be a capacitive touch screen invented by E.A. Johnson at the Royal Radar Establishment, Malvern, UK, around 1965 – 1967. The inventor published a full description of touch screen technology for air traffic control in an article published in 1968.

1970s

In 1971, a “touch sensor” was developed by Doctor Sam Hurst (founder of Elographics) while he was an instructor at the University of Kentucky. This sensor called the “Elograph” was patented by The University of Kentucky Research Foundation. The “Elograph” was not transparent like modern touch screens, however, it was a significant milestone in touch screen technology. The Elograph was selected by Industrial Research as one of the 100 Most Significant New Technical Products of the Year 1973.

In 1974, the first true touch screen incorporating a transparent surface came on the scene developed by Sam Hurst and Elographics. In 1977, Elographics developed and patented a resistive touch screen technology, the most popular touch screen technology in use today. On February 24, 1994, the company officially changed its name from Elographics to Elo TouchSystems.

1980s

In 1983, the computer manufacturing company, Hewlett-Packard introduced the HP-150, a home computer with touch screen technology. The HP-150 had a built in grid of infrared beams across the front of the monitor which detected finger movements. However, the infrared sensors would collect dust and require frequent cleanings.

1990s

The nineties introduced smart phones and handhelds with touch screen technology. In 1993, Apple released the Newton PDA, equipped with handwriting recognition; and IBM released the first smart phone called Simon, which featured a calendar, note pad, and fax function, and a touch screen interface that allowed users to dial phone numbers. In 1996, Palm entered the PDA market and advanced touch screen technology with its Pilot series.

2000s

In 2002, Microsoft introduced the Windows XP Tablet edition and started its entry into touch technology. However, you could say that the increase in the popularity of touch screen smart phones defined the 2000s. In 2007, Apple introduced the king of smart phones, the iPhone, with nothing but touch screen technology.

  Recent development of touchscreen is obvious to all of us. The above knowledge on the history of touchscreen shows us a clear outline of its development. It grows from an immature technology to a strong one step by step and the latest application of multi touch wall strengthens our confidence in going further. Its development is just like the growth of we human beings, which is a process of witnessing miracle. The application of multi touch wall not only makes profits for commercial companies, but also benefits our daily life which means that we can complete lots of tasks by just gently pressing some buttons. And it saves our time and energy and provides us a bright prospect of our society.

Are LED fluorescent tubes ready for prime time? Light emitting diode (LED) fluorescent tubes begin to catch on with consumers—but do the long-term savings outpace the upfront investment? Light emitting diode (LED) fluorescent tubes are all the rage in the lighting market these days. The technology promises to be more energy efficient, less environmentally harmful and more economical than traditional fluorescent tube lighting. Still, there is a lot of debate over whether they are ready for widespread commercial use. We recently came across an instance in which this very debate was being discussed in a LinkedIn electrical construction group. It was a heated thread with two electrical contractors hashing out the pros and cons of using LED fluorescent tubes. To continue our series of articles on “green” construction, we thought we’d tackle the issue ourselves. So here we present our findings on LED fluorescent tubes. Actually, “LED fluorescent tube” is a misnomer. LED lights and fluorescent lights are completely different technologies. LEDs are very small bulbs illuminated by movement of electrons in a diode. Fluorescent bulbs use electrodes and a gas combination of argon and mercury to produce light.

By numerous improvements the LED tubes make its appearance. It is common that every little invention has experienced a million times attempt. Only when we are not discouraged by the countless failures, can we make progress and be successful in the end. The LED fluorescent lamps are of course developed like this.

LED fluorescent lamps should also not be confused with compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs. CFLs use the same technology as fluorescent tubes to produce light, but on a smaller scale. They are a replacement for the incandescent bulbs commonly found in most home light fixtures. CFLs have garnered a lot of press because of their energy efficiency and environmental benefits (i.e., they are considered to be greener than traditional lights because they use less power). An LED tube is made up of hundreds of individual LEDs. They come in a variety of sizes (2, 4 or 6 feet), different temperatures (i.e., different colors of light), and varying arrays of LEDs. They can be purchased with new fixtures, or used for retrofitting existing fixtures. However, they don’t require the ballasts that traditional fluorescents need, so those will need to be removed when replacing fluorescent bulbs with LED tubes

LED fluorescent tubes are developed from the fluorescent tubes and are better than them. The former carries forward the essence of the latter and abandon its shortcomings, so the LED fluorescent tubes have great advantages over the fluorescent tubes. The following article will provide you with extremely detailed knowledge about the two.

To give recognition where it’s due, fluorescent tubes are a great invention. They are four to six times more energy efficient than incandescent bulbs and are said to last 10 to 20 times longer. Of course, they come with their own set of disadvantages, as well. Fluorescent tubes contain mercury and phosphor, which present a number of health and environmental risks. The lights require a ballast, which adds to the cost of the lamp and can cause a buzzing noise. Finally, they frequently flicker, and the light is often drab. Still, LEDs aren’t perfect. The tubes are generally not as bright and can cost more up front. And unfortunately, cost will likely be the number-one driver of greater adoption. The cost of manufacturing LEDs is dropping. Researchers at Purdue University have developed a way to create LEDs using inexpensive, metal-coated silicon wafers instead of expensive sapphire-based bulbs. This discovery has the potential to bring the cost down to levels competitive with fluorescent tubes. And the LED fluorescent replacement makes its appearance nowadays, which is mercury free and energy efficient.

We live in the society and we are social. In order to survive and live in comfort, we human beings have to follow the trend of the society. The development of LED fluorescent lamps is just like that of our human beings. One who keeps on studying new things and updating his brain actively, he will walk in front of the times and not be eliminated by the competitive modern society. It is just true to everything. One who stays still, who will fall behind. In order to keep developing, LED fluorescent lamps and LED downlight have to continue to make improvements and adapt to new demands of human beings and the society. Follow the trend, and we can live a comfortable life.

GestureTek Also Showcases the Cube™ Interactive Floor for Retail Advertising

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA, Mar 9, 2010 — GestureTek, the leader in gesture recognition and multi touch technology for interactive displays, will exhibit its new turnkey, plug-and-play display solutions at Globalshop 2010 at the Sands Expo & Convention Center in Las Vegas, Booth 3352 from March 10th to 12th. Featured technologies will include the company’s new large-format vertical multi touch display™ with a 67” touchscreen (ideal for digital signage and information delivery) and the Cube, a portable interactive floor projection display system for branded experiences, information and entertainment in retail stores. GestureTek is also a leader in multi touch wall for retail and other markets.

Interactive experience is very popular in various entertainment centers, science museums and so on, people just need to stand in front of the huge projection display, and do some simple operations, thus people can achieve the exciting real experience. Interactive activities contain advertisement, animation, game, in a word, visitors can do anything interesting.

“Interactive, gesture-based in-store advertising display systems can build brands and create memorable interactive experiences for customers,” says Vincent John Vincent, President of GestureTek Inc. “Retailers like Children’s Place, Virgin Megastore, Musgo, Telefonica, Clearwire, Sears, Target, Hugo Boss and Hudson Bay Company are just a few of the retailers who have turned to GestureTek technology to help them unleash the power of gesture-controlled interactivity in their stores.”,‘The Cube’ Plug N Play Interactive Floor Projection System for Retail. The Cube is a compact, ‘plug and play’ interactive floor projection display system. This patented, award-winning technology is designed for retail stores. Completely portable, the Cube projects interactive promotional information, animated effects, games and advertising onto a 5’ x 4’ interactive floor display right at the point of sale. It engages and entertains crowds, enhances brand awareness and can help drive sales. Just turn it on, place it on the floor and your retail advertising message runs automatically. The ability to easily customize the dozens of applications that come included with the system or create completely new ones makes the Cube a powerful tool in multi touch markets. The Cube has already proven successful with retailers for in-store advertising, trade shows and touring promotions.

Of course, the multi touch has played out an important part during the course of interactive experience, the reason why the visitors can get so true feeling is that all these mainly depend on the touchscreen application, thus the machine can recognize multi touch points, then gives the corresponding respond.

GestureTek’s newest turnkey interactive advertising display system is a freestanding multi touch unit that comes with a large 67” touchscreen that functions as both digital signage and a presentation system for delivering multi-media information. Users interact with multi touch applications by pointing at or touching the touchscreen, using either one-handed or two-handed gestures. All the hardware is hidden inside a sleek unit that measures only 22 inches deep, bringing the engaging dynamic of a multi touch control interface to displays in both large and small spaces. The unit can be placed anywhere and can be installed without the help of a technician. The flexibility of this multi touch surface computing system makes it ideal for retail locations, trade shows and presentation centers.

This is the IT times, so the advertisement industry, multi media industry, and entertainment industry are well-developed. Therefore the huge screen, or something are similar to it are needed in this times, because we are in the modern society, the governments advocate the promotion of interaction, and the related personnel utilize the multi touch wall to conduct the interactive advertisement, people also can get the information they want to know by multi touch wall. At that moment, the importance of touchscreen has been embodied, after all, it is impossible to provide the mouse and keyboards for the huge screen on the squares.

The benefits that the progress of science brings are obvious to us, we can see the application of high technologies in various fields. With the supports of science, there always be many surprises appear. In America, an organization promotes an interesting activity, which enjoys the magical real experience with the aid of touchscreen <http://www.uiworks.cn/en/touchscreen/>. People can achieve the exciting real scene experience by gesture control, and it seems so funny. Because the scientists have utilized the 3D technology to create the realistic scene on the huge screen, and the audiences just need to stand in front of the magical wall and wave their hands. ORLANDO, Florida, Nov 12, 2008 – GestureTek Inc., the pioneer and patent-holder in camera-enabled gesture-driven interfaces for interactive displays, today announced its newest interactive solution for entertainment and branding, The Cube™.  The Cube, along with GestureTek’s multi touch and 3D depth sensing innovations, will be showcased at the IAAPA Expo (International Association for Amusement Parks and Attractions).  These products will be highlighted on November 18th -21st at Booth 3006 at the Orange County Convention Centre in Orlando, Florida. Now the application of multi touch gets more and more extensive, we can see everywhere, and it is obvious to us that this technology plays out the important effect during the work, especially in the innovative field. It brings many magical pictures to us that we can see in the museum. The Cube is a turnkey, ‘plug and play’ interactive display unit that transforms any space of any size into a gesture-based interactive entertainment and advertising experience.  Just put The Cube on the floor or a table, or against a wall, and it instantly creates an engaging 5′ x 4′ (aprox.) foot interactive display that visitors can control with simple motions. Well-suited for small spaces and for traveling promotions, The Cube gives customers access to GestureTek’s full library of over 70 eye-catching special effects and games.  Applications can be projected onto any surface, immediately transforming the surface into an interactive entertainment medium for the enjoyment of visitors. The interactive innovation on display at the GestureTek Booth is the company’s award-winning Illuminate Multi touch surface computing table, which is currently being used by clients around the world, including NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.  GestureTek and its partner Inhance Digital Corporation delivered the NASA multi touch gaming solution, allowing visitors to collaboratively build a Lunar Outpost.“Multi touch is today’s hot technology,” said Vincent. “It opens up a world of new possibilities for multi-user, multi-player and collaborative interactive experiences, not only for gaming and entertainment, but also for practical uses such as wayfinding, retail promotion and file navigation.”  The technologies are complement and supplement with each other, such as the multi touch wall <http://www.uiworks.cn/en/product/touchwall.html> technology and the 3D technology, the combination of the two lets the pedestrian screen produce various magical effects. It is worth trusting that this technology will promote the new industry and the development of the whole society. GestureTek’s latest innovation in 3D hand tracking technology, the B.C. Explorer interactive display, will also be highlighted at GestureTek’s IAAPA booth. The B.C. Explorer is an interactive exhibit with 3D depth sensing capability, providing an authentic experience, simulating flying, that visitors can control through hand gestures.   The B.C. Explorer, led by next-generation technology innovator Xpletive and powered by GestureTek’s hand tracking software, was used at the Beijing Olympic Games to promote the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, B.C.  People experience the thrill of flying over the province of B.C. and exploring points of interest, with no need to use a touchscreen, remote control or any other peripheral device. The user’s hand motion controls the flight simulation experience. “Other exciting applications coming from GestureTek’s 3D tracking technology include full-body 3D avatar representation and control, and immersive experiences where users see their real-time video images as they interact in a 3D virtual world,” said Vincent.  Multi touch wall <http://www.uiworks.cn/en/product/touchwall.html> has important effect to promote the success of this interactive entertaining game, people only need to operate on the touchscreen of the huge equipment with their hands, the realistic scene which your figure is in will appear. you will get various feeling according to the changes of your gesture, it has to be said that the power of science is immeasurable. No matter the 3D technology, or the multi touch technology, both of them play out their important effects during the course of interactive activity. All these embody the importance of the development of science, people can’t leave it.

ORLANDO, FLORIDA, June 8, 2009 – GestureTek Inc., inventor and multiple patent holder in camera-enabled gesture recognition technology for display, presentation and entertainment systems, today announced several new products and product upgrades aimed at the systems integration market. These cutting-edge products reflect some of the most advanced gesture control applications in the market, including 3D depth sensing, multi touch wall, immersion and portable interactivity. The technologies will be displayed at Infocomm 09 at the Orange County Convention Centre from June 17 to19, Booth 2178.

What mostly attracts people is its image fusion effect, the machine can capture the points of your body from every angle by 3D technology, then you can see your figure on the huge screen, it makes the real experience more realistic. Seen from that, we know 3D technology has important effect in this experiment.

GestureTek’s ScreenXtreme immersive, interactive advertising and digital signage technology tracks people’s movements and puts their real-time video image touchscreen into an interactive digital environment or advertisement.  People interact with the touchscreen content and make changes to the graphics and special effects by moving their hands and body. ScreenXtreme has been newly equipped with a customized network monitoring, content management and advertising metric system. The system allows groups of screens to be organized and managed remotely, providing operational status as well as allowing for content updates. An integrated face tracker provides advertising metrics including “number of views” and “duration per view”. The amount of interaction per advertisement is captured as an additional metric. Infocomm attendees will have the opportunity to interact with GestureTek’s new 3D tracking technology, which uses a depth camera and video gesture control software to enable users to control interactive displays and other consumer devices with simple hand gestures and poses instead of button presses. Other 3D visualization applications include full-body avatar control, two-handed and multi touch control, 360º navigation control and depth tracking digital signage that detects the movement of passers-by and displays advertising messages that follow them as they walk.

For people, they had no need for doing any complicated procedures to conduct this interactive activity, they only need to put their hands on the screen, and move them. Because the screen has multi touch technology, with this technology, it can sensitively sense the touch points and respond to the orders.

GestureTek’s Illuminate multi touch/multi-point tables now come turnkey with a choice of three screen sizes (30”, 40” and 55”) giving systems integrators more flexibility than ever to choose a size-appropriate multi touch display that adheres to the parameters of their clients’ display space. Along with delivering the same award-winning multi touch technology into custom-sized tables, GestureTek also now offers multi touch on vertical surfaces such as freestanding plexiglas or glass screens, store windows, etc. Optional object recognition and finger tracking is available as required.

The multi touch and touchscreen have played an important role during the course of this interactive experience activity, and maybe you don’t know much about advantages of multi touch compare to single touch. In brief, the single touch only supports for single point touch operation, which means you only can touch the procedures one by one, because it can’t sense more than one touch point. And with multi touch, you can optionally rotate, move and drag the target on the screen with your fingers. With this technology, the smart phone and tablet computer become popular with people, it follows that the multi touch is very important in this society.

Touchscreen monitors have become more and more commonplace as their price has steadily dropped over the past decade. There are three basic systems that are used to recognize a person’s touch:

• Resistive
• Capacitive
• Surface acoustic wave

The resistive system consists of a normal glass panel that is covered with a conductive and a resistive metallic layer. These two layers are held apart by spacers, and a scratch-resistant layer is placed on top of the whole setup. An electrical current runs through the two layers while the monitor is operational. When a user touches the screen, the two layers make contact in that exact spot. In the capacitive system, a layer that stores electrical charge is placed on the glass panel of the monitor. When a user touches the monitor with his or her finger, some of the charge is transferred to the user, so the charge on the capacitive layer decreases. On the monitor of a surface acoustic, two transducers (one receiving and one sending) are placed along the x and y axes of the monitor’s glass plate.

The development of touchscreen opens a new era in human society and marks a big step in its progress. It is the achievement of the progress of science and technology, and strengthens our confidence in keeping on moving forward. As it develops step by step, the technology penetrates into more and more areas.

Multi Touch is a leading developer of interactive display systems, based on proprietary software and hardware designs. Multi touch displays are Full HD LCDs, stackable into any size table or wall and support multiuser environments. Software provides unlimited touch points, hand recognition, and object recognition on Windows, Linux and OS X. Multi Touch products are currently in use in more than 40 countries around the world. The products are designed for retail, exhibition, marketing, museum, public information, hospitality, research, education, art, design and other professional uses. George Harrison’s widow Olivia hopes to add more perspective on the reticent Beatle with her new digital book, and fill in the blanks left by Martin Scorsese’s recent documentary. Based on Scorsese’s “George Harrison: Living in the Material World,” the multi-touch book of the same name is available Tuesday on iBookstore. It includes audio, video material from the film along with personal photographs, letters, and memorabilia never seen by the public (a traditional print edition of the book has been in stores).

It’s obviously that the multi touch technology represents a giant leap and brings us lots of surprise. In modern times, everything develops at a striking speed. Of course, the touchscreen technology is of no exception. The appearance of the multi touch wall is the best proof of human wisdom.

Apple iPhone and Microsoft Surface have recently brought the multi touch wall technology into the spotlight, though research and development in connection with multi-touch have been around since the 80s. Our aim is to create a prototype through which we can research and develop new modes of users’ interaction. These interfaces have a great transforming potential for larger scale collaborative public interfaces, as well as for cell phones. This technology has been in the spotlight in the recent months as several products have claimed some sort of authorship about it, even touch research about multi touch has been around for decades.

With the rapid development of touchscreen and multi touch wall technology, we get the idea that new products are based on the old ones. Every little improvement represents a little progress. We are willing to experience the new products and expect better ones. The rapid development of science and technology brings our human beings into a whole new world. And we have to marvel at the creativity of human beings. As we all know, the modern society is a fast paced society. One who keeps on updating his brain, then he will be succeeded and not fall behind. We have enough reasons to believe that our future will be better.

LED technology is rapidly changing: what was once used only for indicator lights in consumer and other types of electronics is quickly becoming the technology of choice for both general and specialized lighting applications. For example, growth in high-brightness LED tube lighting is expected to accelerate dramatically over the next five years, with a projected market growth of 31 percent for 2010 alone. This rapid transition has implications in terms of sourcing the right product from the right supplier.

LEDs are often thought of as commodities for which one supplier is essentially interchangeable with any other. While this might be true for indicator lights, the same cannot be said for LED devices intended for newer applications such as headlamps, interior lighting and back panels. These newer applications usually combine LED packages with drive circuitry, custom optics, and thermal management purchased as a single unit. For this situation, establishing a relationship with a dependable supplier is much more critical.

Common criteria

To help ensure that your organization is buying the right LED tube light product, a set of requirements should be provided by your technical team as part of the Bill of Materials. Common criteria include lumen output (how much light the LED product emits), correlated color temperature (CCT – a measure of the “warmness” or “coolness” of a white light), color-rendering index (CRI – a measure of how faithfully the light reproduces various colors), and efficacy (the ratio of light output to power consumed). Other common requirements include ingress protection ratings and agency certifications (e.g. the CE mark). Depending upon the application, light uniformity may also be important.

As has been discussed in the February 2010 issue of LEDs Magazine, the cycle time for ever-increasing LED performance, especially for white LEDs, is seemingly shorter each day. But more is not necessarily better and it is worth asking your design team which LED characteristics are critical to the application and which are more flexible. Frequently, savings can be realized by yielding slightly in some areas – for example CRI – in order to preserve performance in others, such as efficacy. LED fluorescent replacement is believed to the “green” light that is eco-friendly.

The next step in the sourcing process is whether to source through a distributor versus directly from a supplier. Here the biggest factor is the anticipated volumes. Distributors have advantages over suppliers of shorter lead time with less risk, but if volumes are high enough, it may be worth the effort to work directly with a supplier. If your organization has the capability to manage both the supply chain and the technology issues that invariably arise, significant cost savings can be realized by working directly with an OEM supplier.

Choosing a LED tube supplier

An example of the dramatic growth in the LED industry is the Guangzhou International Lighting Exhibition which featured over 1500 exhibitors from 26 countries in 2009. Many of these suppliers are, in actuality, “private-label” shops, simply affixing their own brand label to LED products purchased from an outside source. Thus, the first question to resolve in the qualification process is whether the suppliers under consideration manufacture their own product.

Once this has been established, other areas of inquiry include the obvious, such as number of years in the LED business, delivery management system, sales channel and any industry-level affiliations, such as the Energy Star program. An evaluation of each potential supplier’s process capabilities and quality assurance (QA) and reliability programs is also important. If a supplier is not among the top in the industry, a factory audit may prove well worth the time and expense.

There are additional areas of risk that should be considered, including the supplier’s overall business model. For example, a supplier tied too closely to just one or two major customers would be a greater risk since that supplier might not be able to survive a downturn in orders. Similarly, a supplier with only one manufacturing location would also be a greater risk as it would be very difficult to recover from a catastrophic occurrence at its facility.

Another risk that impacts all LED tube lighting suppliers is the increasing demand for LED chips, resulting in longer lead times and higher costs. Because of this, an understanding of the supplier’s relationship with their chip manufacturer(s) is essential.

One final consideration is the terms of the supplier warranty. The two failure modes experienced by LED products are lumen degradation (premature deterioration of the level of light output) and catastrophic failure (the LED ceases to emit light altogether). Ensure that the supplier’s warranty covers both these failure modes in terms of end user expectations and that return and credit conditions and logistics are clear and easily executable.

Whether the LED tubes will meet the expectation in the next few years depends on a lot of factors. One of which is to make LED technology more practical and finding cheap materials to reduce the cost of LED products, such as LED fluorescent light and LED downlights, could be a real advantage. If the LED-based product can bring us new exceptional experiences with less energy cost, people will be more likely to get more information of the new LED technology and LED-based products replacing the old non-green ones will become an inevitable trend. It is reasonable to come to the conclusion that green products will enter into every nook and corner.