Apple’s iPhone 5 is 2.5 times faster at responding to touches compared Google Android devices

Apple’s iPhone 5 is 2.5 times faster at responding to touches compared Google Android devices, according to a benchmark test by game and app streaming firm Agawi.

The results confirm what users believe about the devices, and they highlight a feature that is usually let out of technical comparisons.

In its first TouchMarks benchmark test, the iPhone 5 responded to touches at an average time of 55 milliseconds, compared to 85 milliseconds for the iPhone 4. The closest Android device was the Samsung Galaxy S4 at 114 milliseconds.

“Apple trounced the competition,” said Peter Relan, chairman of Agawi. “There is this whole other dimension of responsiveness that Agawi cares about.”

Agawi studied the iPhone 5 and compared it to Android touchscreen smartphones such as the Google MotoX, the HTC One, and the Samsung Galaxy S4. It also compared results for the Nokia Lumia 928 on Windows Phone, which came in at 117 milliseconds. The company started doing the tests as part of its work in delivering Flash-based Facebook games and other apps as interactive streams to iOS devices.

The TouchMarks benchmark measures the touchscreen latency, which is as important to users as display quality. Most competitive discussions focus on pixels per inch and quality of image. The TouchMarks benchmark measured the minimum app response time [MART] scores. The benchmark tests the lightest possible apps, measuring how immediately they respond on a given device.

“Even a two-year old iPhone 4 beat out the other Android devices,” Relan said. “You expect this from Apple’s design team, while others may view their responsiveness as good enough. Now we know why the Android touch keyboard is not as snappy.”

Agawi is making the benchmark and methodology available on its web site. Agawi’s AppGlimpse division plans to measure other phones in the future, including the upcoming iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C. It will also measure response times for games, tablets, and apps streamed from the cloud.

“App responsiveness is judged by how quickly the app can respond to your inputs,” said Rohan Relan, co-founder and CEO of Agawi. “Smartphones with touchscreens that have lower MART scores feel snappier. This is probably why, to many users, the iPhone keyboard feels more responsive than an Android phone keyboard.”

Agawi specializes in tech that runs rich, interactive apps in the cloud and streams them to iOS, Android, and Windows Phone 8 devices. The company’s team of engineers test responsiveness so they can measure just how acceptable the cloud-based content is to users. The team build a device dubbed a Touchscope to measure response times to a level of accuracy that is plus or minus 4 milliseconds. It then adds the cloud processing response time to calculate the actual delays experienced by users.

From:NJYTOUCH

New potential for touch screens found at your fingertips

Our sense of touch is clearly more acute than many realize. A new study by Swedish scientists demystifies the “unknown sense” with first-ever measurements of human tactile perception.

In a ground-breaking study, Swedish scientists have shown that people can detect nano-scale wrinkles while running their fingers upon a seemingly smooth surface. The findings could lead such advances as touch screensfor the visually impaired and other products, says one of the researchers from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

The study marks the first time that scientists have quantified how people feel, in terms of a physical property. One of the authors, Mark Rutland, Professor of Surface Chemistry, says that the human finger can discriminate between surfaces patterned with ridges as small as 13 nanometres in amplitude and non-patterned surfaces.

“This means that, if your finger was the size of the Earth, you could feel the difference between houses from cars,” Rutland says. “That is one of the most enjoyable aspects of this research. We discovered that a human being can feel a bump corresponding to the size of a very large molecule.”

The research team consisted of Rutland and KTH PhD student Lisa Skedung, and psychologist Birgitta Berglund and PhD student Martin Arvidsson from Stockholm Universiy. Their paper, “Feeling Small: Exploring the Tactile Perception Limits,” was published on September 12 in Scientific Reports. The research was financed by a grant from Vinnova and the Knowledge Foundation to the SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden. Rutland says that the project will pursue applications of the research together with SP.

The study highlights the importance of surface friction and wrinkle wavelength, or wrinkle width – in the tactile perception of fine textures.

When a finger is drawn over a surface, vibrations occur in the finger. People feel these vibrations differently on different structures. The friction properties of the surface control how hard we press on the surface as we explore it. A high friction surface requires us to press less to achieve the optimum friction force.

“This is the breakthrough that allows us to design how things feel and are perceived,” he says. “It allows, for example, for a certain portion of a touch screen on a smartphone to be designed to feel differently by vibration.”

The research could inform the development of the sense of touch in robotics and virtual reality. A plastic touch screen surface could be made to feel like another material, such as fabric or wood, for example. The findings also enable differentiation in product packaging, or in the products themselves. A shampoo, for example, can be designed to change the feel of one’s hair.

With the collaboration of National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) material science labs, Rutland and his colleagues produced 16 chemically-identical surfaces with wrinkle wavelengths (or wrinkle widths) ranging from 300 nanometres to 90 micrometres, and amplitudes (or wrinkle heights) of between seven nanometres and 4.5 micrometres, as well as two non-patterned surfaces. The participants were presented with random pairs of surfaces and asked to run their dominant index finger across each one in a designated direction, which was perpendicular to the groove, before rating the similarity of the two surfaces.

The smallest pattern that could be distinguished from the non-patterned surface had grooves with a wavelength of 760 nanometres and an amplitude of only 13 nanometres.

Rutland says that by bringing together professors and PhD students from two different disciplines – surface chemistry and psychology – the team succeeded in creating “a truly psycho-physical study.”

“The important thing is that touch was previously the unknown sense,” Rutland says. “To make the analogy with vision, it is as if we have just revealed how we perceive colour.

“Now we can start using this knowledge for tactile aesthetics in the same way that colours and intensity can be combined for visual aesthetics.”

From:NJYTOUCH

TableConnect Mirrors iOS & Android Devices on a 60″ Touchscreen: Immobile Device

About three years ago, I talked about Table Connect, a 58″ touchscreen display that mirrors the screen of an iPhone. Or not. It turns out that the display we saw in the video wasn’t even a prototype; the “demo video” we saw was made using special effects. But now the same people behind that viral video claim they can make a real device.

Now called TableConnect – the lack of a space tells you they’re serious this time – is more or less the same idea, except now the final product will supposedly work with both iOS and Android devices. As with the fake product, you’ll be able to navigate and control your mobile device from the screen itself. The table can even be propped in an upright position to mimic the portrait mode of mobile devices.

TableConnect is expected to have an edge-to-edge 1080p LED touchscreen and come in two sizes: 60″ and 32″. It will also have several “Smart Areas” – i.e. home buttons on every corner and orientation buttons on the edges.

TableConnect will also supposedly support Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and HDMI connectivity, although this part is confusing because the prototype shown in the video below connects to an iPhone 4 using a 30-pin cable. TableConnect will also require a jailbroken iOS device, although the final product will supposedly come with a “pre-configured” iPhone or iPad. There’s currently no word on exactly which Android devices it will work with.

TableConnect is currently asking for money on Indiegogo to help with the development of the final product. Unlike most fundraising projects you cannot get a TableConnect as a reward, but even if they did offer one, most of us won’t be able to afford it anyway. The projected final cost for the 60″ version is a jaw-dropping €25,000 (~$33,000 USD) while the 32″ version will cost €15,000 (~$20,000 USD). There goes my dream of playing epic sessions of Spaceteam.

From:NJYTOUCH

All Windows 8 Ultrabooks Will Have Touch Screen Displays

Intel and Microsoft appear to be on the same page when it comes to touchscreen computing. With the launch of Windows 8 for x86 and Windows RT for ARM architectures, Microsoft made it crystal clear that touch navigation is the preferred method of getting around Windows, and rather than fight it, Intel jumped in Microsoft’s corner and told its hardware partners that in order to market a 4th Generation Core processor (Haswell) system as an Ultrabook, it must have a touchscreen.

Barring an unlikely backlash from buyers, what this inevitably means is that all Ultrabooks will soon havetouchscreen displays. According to Intel Senior President Kirk Skaugen, some 70 percent of retail Ultrabooks are already there, indicating that they’re well “on the way to 100 percent.”

As promising as that sounds for Microsoft and its efforts to promote Windows 8′s touch friendly user interface (UI), there’s a flip side to the story. Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at the NPD Group, tellsCNET that touch Ultrabooks represent a minor share of total Windows PC sales.

What that means is that even though Microsoft and Intel are tag teaming the transition to touch computing, consumers can still vote with their wallets and choose non-touch systems, if that ends up being the preference.

From:NJYTOUCH

InFocus will make jumbo, touch-screen computers in Tigard

InFocus Corp. said this morning that it will manufacture new models of its jumbo-sized, touch-screen computers in Tigard instead of overseas.

The new manufacturing facility employs six now and InFocus said it’s in the process of expanding to 10 people. Prior models are still made in higher volumes in Asia, but the company — headquartered at a separate site near Tigard — said it didn’t make sense to produce the new, 70-inch version overseas given shipping costs on a specialty product.

The new Tigard facility will be InFocus’ first production facility in a decade. The company said it will add a service center to the facility in the near future.

InFocus was once the leader in Oregon’s cluster of electronic display companies, pioneering the market for digital projectors — which were initially made in Oregon. But larger brands such as Epson, NEC and Sony made the market more competitive and InFocus shifted production to China.

Sales continued to fall as competition increased, but InFocus remains a leader in the projector market. Revenues totaled $150 million in 2011, the last year for which the company reported sales.

InFocus introduced the $6,000, 55-inch Mondopad in 2011 as a collaboration device in conference rooms. Earlier this year it introduced a scaled back version called the Big Touch for $1,000 less.

The new Tigard facility will make an $11,000, 70-inch Mondopad and an equivalent Big Touch device. InFocus already employs about 50 at its Tigard headquarters.

Correction: An earlier version of this article reported that the manufacturing facility is in Beaverton. It’s actually just south of Beaverton, in the Tigard city limits.

From:NJYTOUCH

Ergonomically friendly,HP monitors come with touchscreen

Hewlett-Packard Corp. released a new line of desktops today, looking to attract a more specialized consumer demographic by building products with ergonomics, touch screens, and gaming in mind.

Running on Windows 8, HP’s new line of touch monitors is designed to provide “an immersive touch experience,” said Todd Kruse, product marketing manager, speaking from a web presentation last week.

The Envy Recline, which comes in 23 inches and 27 inches, features a 1920 x 1080 full HD display, as well as a 10-point touchscreen described as “ultra reactive.” It allows users to either swipe, tap, or pinch the screen, or just hook up a keyboard and mouse and use it as a regular monitor. It also comes with NVIDIA graphics for better visuals,
Beats Audio for the PC’s sound, and built-in 5G Wi-Fi support at 802.11 ac. The Recline also features an HD webcam and the ability to link up to a TV screen through Intel WiDi.

Yet what HP is particularly proud of is its attention to ergonomics. The Envy Recline is outfitted with a hinge mechanism, allowing users to rotate it for below-desk typing or for deep reclining.

That design was a difficult one to come up with, especially since it had to balance out with consumer demand for thin, contemporary-looking screens, Kruse said.

From:NJYTOUCH

Science and technology: Acer Aspire R7 Touchscreen Notebook Gets Intel Chi...

Science and technology: Acer Aspire R7 Touchscreen Notebook Gets Intel Chi...: The R7 features a repositioned keyboard and high-definition  touch-screen mounted on a hinge that allows the screen to flip, reverse, lie...