Slam poet Marshall Soulful Jones performs "Touchscreen".
posted by flex on Jan 31, 2012 - 11 comments

What touchscreens lack is something called affordance. It’s a lofty term for an object’s built-in ability to tell you how it works. A doorknob affords turning. The button on a car stereo affords pushing. A touchscreen affords nothing. It relies on software for any affordance, which in turn relies on total immersion for the user.... The days of analog affordance are gone. What we want, apparently, is to surround ourselves with touchscreens of varying size—tiny ones in our pockets, medium-size models for our laps and dashboards, and massive versions for our walls. We want tomorrow’s vintage shops to be lined with identical, blank, anonymous slabs. We want things to be vessels for software, and nothing more. - A Slate piece asks if touchscreens are becoming too ubiquitous
posted by beisny on Nov 4, 2011 - 97 comments

IBM is working on a keyboard design that will adapt to a user’s finger anatomy. Touchscreen keyboard morphs to fit your typing style. [Fig. 2] Via: [Wired] Morphing Touchscreen Keyboard Interface (PDF) [Pat2PDF/IBM]
posted by Fizz on Jul 26, 2011 - 20 comments

The First World Problems Rap (SLYT)
posted by swift on Jun 24, 2011 - 43 comments

Reality Touch Theatre at the University of Groningen: "... we turned our existing 3D theatre with a big cylindrical screen into one that can detect 100+ simultaneous touches." [more inside]
posted by bwg on Feb 12, 2011 - 4 comments

Töken Experience It's only a prototype, but I think the video more than makes up for it. Via
posted by fizzzzzzzzzzzy on Aug 17, 2010 - 12 comments

I want you to want me is the latest project from Jon Harris and Sep Kamvar. It's an interactive touch-screen installation at MoMA, part of the current exhibit called Design and the Elastic Mind. The installation culls dating profiles from the Internet and visualizes trends and statistics. Each person is represented as a floating balloon. If you're in NYC, check the exhibit out before it closes on May 12. Otherwise, here's a video.
posted by spigoat on Apr 22, 2008 - 10 comments

Jeff Han, shows advances in his multitouch interfaces a year later. YT video 1. YT video 2.
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Mar 14, 2007 - 36 comments

Her vote went smoothly, but boss Gary Rudolf called her over to look at what was happening on his machine. He touched the screen for gubernatorial candidate Jim Davis, a Democrat, but the review screen repeatedly registered the Republican, Charlie Crist. ...A poll worker then helped Rudolf, but it took three tries to get it right, Reed said. ... Broward Supervisor of Elections spokeswoman Mary Cooney said it's not uncommon for screens on heavily used machines to slip out of sync, making votes register incorrectly. ... Early voting problems already in Florida.
posted by amberglow on Oct 30, 2006 - 107 comments

This very cool multi-input touchscreen is an amazing example of potential human-computer interfaces and is not the same thing as the very cool Lemur device marketed in the US by Cycling 74. It really makes you realize that there's a whole new level of graphics, animation, 3D, music and control technology yet to be explored. Fascinating stuff.
posted by dbiedny on Feb 11, 2006 - 30 comments

Draw on your computer screen with your hands. A touch-screen art program of sorts. I don't own a Mac but this would make me rethink that. [Embedded QT alert]
posted by KevinSkomsvold on Oct 7, 2005 - 38 comments

Oops. Touch-screen errors led to loss of 4,400 ballots in North Carolina election.
posted by drezdn on Dec 12, 2004 - 48 comments

We conclude that the study is entirely without merit and its “results” are meaningless. Remember Florida and those electronic voting machines? Remember those plucky Berkeley grad students who proved something was wrong with the evoting counties? It turns out they were completely wrong.
posted by allan on Dec 7, 2004 - 29 comments