NanoTouch: like your parent's LucidTouch, but now with more nano!

Microsoft and Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs in Cambridge, Massachusetts -- the cats that brought us LucidTouch a while ago -- are back with NanoTouch, a further refinement of the technology aimed at making UIs practical on tiny devices. Utilizing a 2.4-inch screen with a touch pad on the back, users can select or drag items from the underside -- meaning that the entire screen is visible at all times. According to researchers, targets as little as 1.8mm (less than half the size of, say, the buttons on an iPhone) are easily hit using this method -- bringing the advantages of touchscreens to smaller form factors, with a number of possible applications including electronic jewelry, wearable computers, and virtual finger puppets. Video after the break.

Update: It appears that unlike LucidTouch (which was in fact developed in Cambridge), NanoTouch was actually the product of work done by folks from Microsoft and the Hasso-Plattner-Institute in Berlin / Potsdam. Sorry for the mix up!

[mere @ Dec 19th 2008 4:42PM]

but why?

[neodorian @ Dec 19th 2008 4:48PM]

"bringing the advantages of touchscreens to smaller form factors"

[fred @ Dec 19th 2008 4:49PM]

I remember people said the same thing about the airplane.

[Saint @ Dec 19th 2008 7:28PM]

@fred: How old are you?

[Jason @ Dec 19th 2008 5:26PM]

Dude, he didn't say he remembered WHEN that happened, just that it did.

[fred @ Dec 19th 2008 7:59PM]

Too old to be carded . :(

[Chaos Theory @ Dec 19th 2008 4:42PM]

i always read an article then guess who wrote it, flatley's articles are always the ones i get right, and they're always awesome

[dg @ Dec 19th 2008 5:50PM]

I do that too. I usually can get Darren Murph's and Thomas Ricker's. I think Ricker's are always great.

[Chase @ Dec 19th 2008 4:44PM]

giggity!

[FILA @ Dec 19th 2008 4:47PM]

not a good idea

[fred @ Dec 19th 2008 4:50PM]

Elaborate, maybe?

[ZaxCG2 @ Dec 19th 2008 4:54PM]

Or uhhhh.... maybe the STYLUS needs to make a return?

[kingofdaberbz @ Dec 19th 2008 4:55PM]

That looks awesome! Props to Microsoft and ME. This is a very innovative idea.

[slycooper_rocker (lorddshadow the amazing) [anti-panda death squadron force five] @ Dec 19th 2008 4:58PM]

sounds pretty sweet to me. its certainly more practical than that keyboard with the keys on the back.

[Jeff @ Dec 19th 2008 5:15PM]

"High Tech Jewelry" sounds a lot like what MS would think is a good idea.

[Brad @ Dec 19th 2008 6:12PM]

Watches are jewelry.

So are cellphones to most people.

[Greg @ Dec 19th 2008 5:18PM]

But.. can it play Doom?

On a more serious note, he *was* playing a FPS game -- pretty cool, but how would he control both the shooting and the moving with one finger?

[idiot @ Dec 19th 2008 10:17PM]

who said he had to use one?

[notjoel @ Dec 22nd 2008 2:51PM]

I saw this play Q3A when they presented it at UW this past year, actually. Pretty sweet stuff.

[j616 @ Dec 19th 2008 5:19PM]

electronic jewellery? wouldn't you only be able to use it on necklaces or something like that so you can reach the touch-pad on the back? then how are you gonna see and use the thing with it tethered to your neck? why would any other item need this? it just seems like making a solution then looking for the problem :-P

[Fanfoot @ Dec 19th 2008 8:29PM]

Dude, why do you wear your watch so loose?

So I can touch the underside of the screen.

Badumpum! Tish....

[Matt @ Dec 19th 2008 5:22PM]

Did I just see a guy imitate Goatse to navigate Google Maps?

[Shugg @ Dec 19th 2008 5:37PM]

hope your back to wifi browsing on storm, now they ran new wire across the pacific,that darn bracken,,.wait bb storm no wifi hmmmhmm deedeedeee..I'm glad to see u not so angry,.y so serious?

[idiot @ Dec 19th 2008 10:18PM]

@shugg



ummm...



...wut?

[Johan S @ Dec 19th 2008 5:21PM]

I've seen this suggested on engadget and even other forums.It's not a bad idea.

[Shugg @ Dec 19th 2008 5:29PM]

wow looks like microsoft has officially killed the iPhone,.so this the nanotouch,. I wonder if apple will now com e out with a device called the zunebox,.dee dee deeee

[gadget00 @ Dec 21st 2008 9:45PM]

LOL! that was so funny! hahahaha

[Cybergypsy @ Dec 19th 2008 5:35PM]

Very Cool :)

[Shugg @ Dec 19th 2008 6:19PM]

I need a laptop,this iPhone don't play that video .sucks,.I need a cowon or storm,.

[cg200313 @ Dec 23rd 2008 4:15PM]

I'm using my iPhone right now and the whole site crashed on me 3 times just to see that the clip won't play. I'm tired of this piece of junk (iPhoney). Everybody makes it sound so great, but all I have are problems after problems with this thing. I'M TIRED OF APPLE CONVINCING ME AND ALL OF MY FRIENDS THAT IT'S OUR FAULT IF SOMETHING DOESN'T WORK ON THIS PHONE(as if the product is so simple).

[dg @ Dec 19th 2008 6:02PM]

"...or high-tech clothing"

What?! Oh, yeah, because I'm always shoving my hands down my pants to play
with SOMETHING. Might as well give it a rest and play with this thing
instead.

[dg @ Dec 19th 2008 6:07PM]

...but seriously, what the hell are they even talking about. I can't
think of anything off the top of my head that this could work on
besides electronic devices (cellphones, PMPs, tablets etc.). There is
just no way putting these in clothing and on jewelry is practical. Why
not call it how it is? A regular touchscreen has at least some
practicality for "high-tech clothing", but seriously, you would just
look like you were rubbing yourself in public all the time, and it
wouldn't even be easy to do.

[Brad @ Dec 19th 2008 6:16PM]

I could see clothing. Imagine you're in a Haz-mat suit (or even just a clean room), and you've got a little screen on your left forearm. Rather than obscuring the screen with your right hand, you touch the underside of the suit.

I'm always surprised when people don't immediately see a purpose that applies to themselves, they assume something is a bad / useless idea. Figure if they bothered to write that, they have SOME use in mind. MP3 players and cellphones are the obvious choice, and it'll hopefully find its way there too, but there are other places it can be used with MUCH better margins.

I hope you never have decision power in a company that does anything besides mass-market, mass-appeal, low-cost electronics.

[dg @ Dec 19th 2008 6:35PM]

Sorry, Brad, but how are you going to touch the under-side of the screen if its on the outside of a haz-mat suit. Pull your right arm of the the sleeve and shove it down the left arm sleeve so you can touch the under-side of the screen?

Plus, I was sort of going on what they showed when they said "high-tech clothing", which was a hand-bag with some guy trying to lift the weight of teh bag with one finger so he could tilt the screen even to see it. That doesn't work.

Obviously I know that there are other things that it could be used for, but lets be honest, it's not going to be jewelry and clothing.

[dg @ Dec 19th 2008 6:39PM]

If you're saying to out the touch screen on the other side of the sleeve, that just wouldn't work very well. Because they aren't in near-perfect proximity to each other, it's hard to guess where to place your finger to begin with, and it would always feel a little like the calibration is changing according to how you have your arm bent (which would change the proximity between the two screens).

[npChaos @ Dec 19th 2008 7:32PM]

dg, that shouldn't matter if your fingers were displayed on the screen. If there is a virtual representation of your hand and fingers on the screen you are looking at, it becomes simple to guess where you should place them, that was really the whole idea with lucidtouch.

[Hans @ Dec 19th 2008 8:38PM]

it looks like it'd be really difficult to hold a small device like the one pictured, and to control it from the backside. if you watch the video you see the user holding the entire screen awkwardly with one hand and then using one finger to control on the other hand. it may work better on larger devices, but smaller devices would definitely need to be re-engineered to fit your hands differently before this would actually work.

[Wwhat @ Dec 19th 2008 10:42PM]

The video makes it clear that you'd have some form of severe pain/damage to your hands/tendons in 15 minute, suffering all the while to achieve that.
Back to the drawing board I'd say, sooner or later you'll think up something that works, don''t give up hope.

[tekd @ Dec 19th 2008 11:37PM]

Definitely seems like the best way to control an FPS on a super-portable device...obscuring half the screen when trying to shoot stuff is pretty impractical.

[Nick J @ Dec 20th 2008 12:07AM]

"virtual finger puppets"

...that sounds okay...as a noun....

[sanriver12 @ Dec 20th 2008 12:28PM]

Microsoft is on a roll... surface, win7 and this. very exciting

[oliver @ Dec 21st 2008 4:42AM]

Where have I seen this before..... ahhhhh APPLE...

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/05/10/apple_filing_reveals_multi_sided_ipod_with_touch_screen_interface.html

Wonder who gets the patent ;-)

[Wwhat @ Dec 21st 2008 8:57AM]

I think you just broke that company's heart, and spirit.

[superhobo @ Dec 21st 2008 10:55AM]

Pretty cool