Article Summary #3

"Mobile Touch Screens Could Soon Feel the Pressure"

http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/24414/?a=f

A company based out of the United Kingdom called Peratech has signed a deal for $1.4 million to license its pressure touch screen technology to a Japanese company called Nissha. This technology is similar to current touch screen technologies except that this technology can sense the force exerted by your finger onto the touch screen, adding an entire dimension to the functionality of the device. Before this technology, when you would touch a touch screen a sensor would detect it as either being on or off, but now with the advent of this new technology the amount of pressure exerted onto the screen will determine its function. This new technology uses a process called “Quantum tunneling” which pretty much means that individual cells at the atomic level will be used in determining the amount of pressure applied. There will be pressure sensors on the perimeter of the screen that will sense how much pressure is applied, then coupled with something comparable to the touch screen design today, will accurately measure both the position of your finger on the screen and how hard you are pressing down on it. This technology can relatively easily be added to current touch screen displays, so that will definitely a hot topic in a couple months. The schedule release date of this new technology could be as soon as April of this year, so keep your eye out for devices with this capability soon.