Get ready for a new kind of hands-on computing: Thoroughly touchable apps

Microsoft (MSFT) launches its newest operating system, Windows 7, on Oct. 22, and one of the most-talked about aspects of the release will be its ability to support multi-touch applications.

Users of Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone may shrug. After all, they already use their index fingers to effortlessly flick through their contacts, and they can “pinch” and expand photos with their thumbs and forefingers.

But Windows 7 will enable users to simultaneously use all ten fingers on their screens, a capability that should unleash a new wave of cool applications–and ultimately change the way some consumers interact with their devices.

“We will start to develop a language between us and computers that’s very intuitive,” says Amichai Ben-David, CEO of N-trig, a private company that makes technology that is integrated into computer screens to make them touchable. N-trig, based in Kfar Saba, Israel, counts Microsoft as one of its investors.

Expanding the two-finger experience

Ben-David contends that there’s “actually very little we can do with two fingers” – which is how most iPhone users interact with the phone today.  During a recent visit to FORTUNE’s offices he demonstrated an nifty application that makes use of four fingers: He called up Google (GOOG) Earth and used the thumb and index finger of each hand to form a rectangle around the area he wished to zoom in on.  And he could use his two hands to keep zooming until he got the exact view he wanted.

He also demonstrated technology from SpaceClaim, a maker of 3D modeling software, that lets users manipulate images based on the number of fingers used: Two fingers, two index fingers, say, can move the image up and down on the screen, widen or contract in two dimensions. Add a third finger, and the image becomes a three-dimensional image that can be tilted, flipped and reworked with a 360-degree view.

SpaceClaim is an N-trig partner, as is multimedia software company Corel, both of which are building what Ben-David calls “native multi-touch applications” — software that was designed with a multi-touch user in mind.

Ben-David acknowledges that the catalog of such native touch applications today remains limited.  In the meantime consumers may end us experiencing multi-touch when touch functions are glommed on to an existing application. N-trig itself developed the “hook” that turned Google Earth into a tactile experience.

“I don’t want to get into the politics between Microsoft and Google,” Ben-David joked, by way of explaining why Google wasn’t already making its products touch-friendly. He added: “Google will respond to multi-touch. Until they do, we will fill in the gaps.”

Google and software developers surely are waiting for computers with touch screens to go mainstream. DisplaySearch, an Austin, Texas, based research firm, estimates the touch panel touch panel market is on track to grow to $3.3 billion and 660 million units by 2015 – a figure that include mobile phones and so-called resistive-touch panels used in automated tellers and cash registers.  Ben-David says touch-panel PCs, notebooks and netbooks are coming soon from a variety of computer makers he can’t disclose.

Then again, touch isn’t for everyone: Silicon Alley Insider’s Henry Blodgett recently wrote a piece entitled Microsoft Windows 7? We Already Hate it.

His beef? Said Blodgett: “We never touch our PC screen, and we hate it when other people touch our PC screens.”

من أكثر الميزات التي جذبتني إلى Windows 7  هي ميزة اللمس المتعدد وهي عبارة إمكانية لمس شاشة اللمس بأكثر من إصبع الأمر الذي كان غير ممكن في نظم التشغيل السابقة

سأتكلم عن ستة برامج وألعاب يطبق عليها Windows 7  ميزة اللمس المتعدد :

1- Microsoft Surface Globe

يستخدم هذا البرنامج  محرك إفتراضي  ثلاثي الأبعاد يقوم بعرض العالم بشكل ثلاثي الأبعاد  , بإستخدام اللمس المتعدد تستطيع التصفح إلى أي مدينة تشاء وأعود للتأكيد بشكل ثلاثي الأبعاد وهذا ما يعطي التصفح رونقه في Windows 7 , الأبنية ستكون كما ولو كأنها أمامك , يمكنك مشاهدة المزيد طريق هذا الفيديو

2-Microsoft Surface Collage:

خذ صورك وقم بترتيبها كما تشاء , غيّر حجمها وعينّها خلفية لسطح مكتبك  فقط بإستخدام أصابعك …

3- Microsoft Surface Lagoon :

وجود شاشة توقف تستطيع التفاعل معها أمر رائع , وضع يدك والعزف على البيانو وكأنه أمامك , أول لمس الماء وجعل الأسماك تدور حول أصابعك شيء جميل أيضاً

ثلاثة ألعاب تعمل ايضاً باللمس المتعدد وهي  4-Microsoft Blackboard و 5- Microsoft Rebound و 6- Microsoft Garden Pond ستراهم وستتعرف على طبيعة التعامل مع تلك الألعاب بسهولة , فهو أمر تنركه بسهولة أكثر من غيره

تقينة اللمس المتعدد هي من شركة n-trig وهي تنصب بشكل أحادي على Windows 7 إي أنها لا تأتي مدمجة معه وهي متوافرة حالياً لعدد محدود من ال Tablet Pc  , يمكنك معرفة أنواع هذه الأجهزة بالذهاب إلى الرابط التالي : هنا

Windows 7′nin ayak seslerini bir önceki hafta yazmıştım. Ama dün beni heyecanlandıran bir konuya daha rastladım.

Microsoft, N-trig firmasına yatırım yapma kararı aldığını açıkladı. N-trig çoklu dokunmatik ekran teknolojisi üretiyor. Microsoft’un  http://www.n-trig.com/ a yatırım yapma nedeni ise yeni çıkaracağı işletim sistemi Windows 7′nin tümüyle dokunmatik özellikleri destekleyecek olması. Yani yazılım tarafında sorun yok ama dokunmatik teknolojinin çok pahalı olduğu da bilinen bir gerçek!

Eğer Microsoft’un ve 2-3 yatırım firmasının 24 milyon dolarlık fonlaması yeterse N-trig kişisel bilgisayarlarımızı mouse ve tuşlardan kurtararak geniş kitlelere yayabilecek.

Bill Gates, bu konuda yaptığı birçok konuşmada üzerine basa basa şunu vurguluyor: “İnsanlar bilgisayarlarla daha doğal yollarla iletişim kurmalı.”

Hala klavye ve mouse’un egemenliğini sürdürdüğü teknoloji dünyasında Bill Gates’in bu sözlerinin kanıtı o kadar çok ki… Dokunmatik ekranı ile cep telefonunu yeniden tanımlayan iPhone, kısa sürede nasıl kabullenildi hepimiz biliyoruz, değil mi?

N-trig ne yaptı?

N-trig, DuoSense adını verdiği kalem ve parmak aracılığıyla kullanabilen bir çoklu dokunmatik ekran üretti. Ne demek bu çoklu dokunmatik ekran. Bir parmağınızla bir klasörü taşırken diğer parmağınızla Word programını açabiliyorsunuz. Veya aynı iPhone’da olduğu gibi iki parmağınızı birbirinden ayırdığınızda ekranda zoom yapabiliyorsunuz. Yani bilgisayarın ekranı birden fazla parmağınızın dokunmasını algılıyor.

In an effort to make Windows 7’s multitouch user-interface one of the OS’s top selling points, Microsoft has invested millions in Israeli startup N-trig to provide PCs with touchscreen technology.

Today, N-trig announced that it had completed a US$24 million fund raising round from investors, including Aurum Ventures, Challenger Ltd., Canaan Partners, Evergreen Venture Partners, and Microsoft. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Microsoft was the largest investor.

This investment should help ensure that the screens work well with Windows 7 and any other multitouch devices Microsoft might release (touchscreen Zunes, anyone?)  in addition to making the technology more widely available to hardware manufacturers. It makes a lot of sense for Microsoft to be certain that multitouch devices are on the market when it ships Windows 7, because customers will doubtless be looking for the feature.

A friend, who is a not-so-tech savvy lawyer, sent me a text message today expressing his excitement after he read an article about “Windows 7 having a touchscreen.” Customers will be dissatisfied if there are no multitouch PCs ready to buy when Windows 7 ships.

Microsoft needs happy customers in order to maintain its market share and strengthen the Windows brand. Its investment in N-trig is a down payment.

Microsoft (s MSFT) continues to push touch as a user interface, this time as a participant in the $24 million funding round for Israeli startup N-Trig, whose technology enables multitouch, or the use of more than one finger for input. Multitouch hit it big on the iPhone, where one uses multiple fingers to zoom in rather than one finger to drag things around the screen. N-Trig’s technology is also pressure-sensitive capacitive like the iPhone, rather than based on cameras, such as with the touch technologies used by HP’s (s HPQ) TouchSmart PC and the Microsoft Surface table. An article in today’s Wall Street Journal hypes Microsoft’s efforts, and spends a good amount of verbiage on how touch could replace the mouse, but won’t be useful everywhere.

Ain’t that the truth. Touch is frankly inappropriate for many tasks, from typing blog entries to dealing with Excel spreadsheets. And while Microsoft (and HP, whose TouchSmart computer is fun to play with) envisions touch being used in a family room-oriented desktop for photos and recipes, I’m not so sure. It’s awkward to page through multiple photos on a vertical screen using a monitor that’s roughly an arm’s length away. Frankly a clicker would be the best option, or barring that, a mouse. And for recipes, one look at my cookbooks, which are completely nasty — waterlogged and gummed together with random food bits — is enough to convince me that the best option is one that is not electronic.

I’m not against touch, and think it adds more usability, especially when it comes to accessing a lot of information in a small space, like on a phone — but I’m not sold on it as a mouse replacement or as a UI for a traditional computer. Now bring out the Surface table, some fun games and photo-sharing software, and I’ll embrace the touch experience, but for now I think some of the industry’s push for touch is inappropriate.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that within 18 months HP plans to have multiple touchscreen products, including a laptop, “that use the same type of finger-tapping interface popularized by Apple Inc.’s iPhone.” If HP does use the same type of touch screen as that of the iPhone, it will represent a significant breakthrough for larger touch screens as it will help drive down costs and create a market for more applications.

The iPhone has brought touch to the masses, but HP and Microsoft have been pushing the technology for years. Microsoft’s Bill Gates showed off his first tablet in 2000, and in the last two years offered the world the futuristic Surface Table and the Touch Wall. And HP launched its second generation of touch-based personal computers earlier this summer. But the underlying touch technology for smaller devices is very different from that of big ones.

Behind the iPhone, Samsung Instinct, LG Secret and several other mobile phones with touch screens lie capacitive sensors. These are semiconductors that require the human body to make them work. For users, it means that fingernails aren’t enough to dial a number and that the resulting screens are clearer instead of filmy. But the capacitive screens used in phones would be prohibitively expensive if they were put in larger devices. They could also could cause usability problem, especially when used for tabletops, where an errant palm could easily flick photos out of sight or drag windows to the wrong locale.

That’s why HP’s personal computer and Microsoft Surface Table and Touch Wall rely on cameras built into the four corners of the monitors to make their touch screens react. These screens generally use LEDs to shine light across the surface areas. When a finger interrupts that light pattern, the cameras sense where the finger (or fingers) are based upon how the light scatters and react accordingly, all without the need for either a network of chips underneath the screen or pressure-sensitive films.

But between the large-screen touch offerings and the existing capacitive screens on cell phones, notebooks and tablets have languished, with most using resistive screens, which measure touch via pressure applied using a stylus or fingertip. Many tablet and laptop makers have capacitive screens in their product road maps, but in order to really drive adoption, they’ll need to incorporate applications that take advantage of touch.

Last month, Dell showed off the first multi-touch, capacitive touch screen for its 12.1-inch Latitude XT tablet. The Dell machine’s touch screen is provided by N-Trig, a startup with offices in Israel and Austin, Texas. On Monday, N-Trig released a software development kit that will allow programmers to build multi-touch software that can “read” gestures and touch to control applications. HP has its own internal software group that builds touch applications as well. It may only take a couple of years before our fingers will be flying — not over keys, but over screens.

image of first HP touch screen computer circa 1983 courtesy of HP

N-Trig Ltd., an Israeli technology company founded in 1999 with offices in Tel Aviv, Texas and Taiwan, has raised a whopping $41 million “including $28 million from Canaan Partners, Evergreen Venture Partners, and current investors, a $5 million credit line from Plenus Venture Lending Fund, and the rest in future commitments by investors” according to Globes.

According to its recent press release:

“N-trig’s technology is now being deployed by Dell Computer, with its recent launch of its Latitude XT Tablet PC. Other major brands are expected to announce new products, which raises the bar on the next generation of notebook PCs and other mobile devices currently in development.

N-trig is the creator of the only pen and touch/multitouch solution for today’s computing world. N-trig provides a true hands-on computing^TM experience, providing leading OEM brands with new product platforms that help innovate, differentiate, and deliver new user experiences.”

Amihai Ben-David, CEO of N-trig:
“We at N-trig are pleased to add two leading VC funds such as Canaan and Evergreen to the N-trig family. Our global expansion, working with supply chain partners in Asia, and developing new, breakthrough mobile computing platforms will enable us to create and penetrate new markets. Our vision is to leverage our ground breaking technology and introduce new products that are pen and touch input enabled. Imagine the new opportunities for our ODM/OEM partners producing hand-helds, notebooks, gaming devices, and large format platforms all based on N-trig hands-on^TM technology.”

Izhar Shay, Venture Partner with Canaan Partners:

“We are very excited to become an investor at N-trig. We believe that the company’s innovative pen and touch technologies position it as a market leader in this fast growing space, and we are happy to see the traction that N-trig is gaining with major computer brands.”

Boaz Dinte, Managing Partner at Evergreen Venture Partners:

“The computing user interface is on the verge of a major shift: after using a mouse and a keyboard for many years, the market is seeking an enhanced user experience. We believe that N-Trig’s DuoSense will lead this revolution, positioning it as the premier technology in both tablet PCs and mobile devices.”

For more info check out the full press release.