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The two developments seem to have little in common now, but both involve technologies that might become widespread in the near future. Peratech, a company based in the UK, licensed its touchscreen technology last week to Nissha, a large manufacturer of touchscreens. And, on 3 February, Amazon reportedly bought TouchCo, based in New York. These companies develop screens that can sense pressure as well as touch, but by using different approaches.

Pressure-sensing screens will be a generation ahead of the current touchscreens, and will bring greater interactivity. They could sense touch in as many points as you want simultaneously, change the orientation of objects on the screen, or react in exquisitely sensitive ways to a pencil input. Pressure-sensitive screens could also lead the way to true digital books, where you can write and erase as if on paper. Both Peratech and TouchCo represent two approaches that already seem to work on small screens.

Peratech was born out of a project in the University of Durham, UK, and uses a material called the quantum tunnelling composite (QTC). Discovered accidentally in 1996, QTC works on the seemingly bizarre phenomenon called quantum tunnelling, where particles move effortlessly through physical barriers. Quantum tunnelling is a real effect that is responsible for several physical phenomena, including nuclear fusion in the Sun. Peratech used it to sense pressure on a screen.

QTCs use the phenomenon of tunnelling to become conductors under pressure, and act as pressure sensors. Extremely versatile, they can be integrated into existing devices, and can take any shape or size. They are strong and can withstand high temperatures and pressures. They use little power; none when not in use. The small size of Peratech’s sensors makes them perfect for mobile phones.

Devices using this technology are expected to be out within months. QTC allows device makers to do wonderful things in their displays, including 3D user interfaces. But QTC is only one way to develop a pressure sensitive screen. TouchCo uses a technology called interpolating force-sensitive resistance. As the name implies, it uses resistors that change their resistance — and hence, the current flowing through them — when a force is applied on them. This also allows for very low-power devices, and possibly even flexible devices. The device built by TouchCo has software that can sense different types of inputs like the touch of a finger, a brush stroke or the draw of a pencil.

TouchCo came out of the computer science department in New York University. Within months after the company was formed, it was supposed to have been bought by Amazon, which is trying to develop a new set of e-readers to compete against Apple’s iPad (Amazon is yet to officially announce the deal, and the TouchCo website says it is no longer in business). The screen of an iPad or an iPhone can sense touch at only a few points at the same time. But TouchCo’s technology will sense pressure at an almost infinite number of points.

These approaches are by no means the only ones of their kind. Companies such as Microsoft and Perceptive Pixels, also based in New York, are developing similar technologies for larger screens. In any case, pressure sensitive screens will make their debut in a few months. They will bring a new era of flexibility to screens of all sizes: phones, e-readers, laptops. They could even generate new devices.

Joy Biswas
7 Feb, 2010 4:56 AM
This is great news, this is going to provide us with new set of applications which may not have been possible earlier. I believe this new technology may have varied applications in other fields as well which may revolutionize technology altogether.