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Multitouch pioneer Jazzmutant / Stantum makes cocky three finger pan from past to future of input
Before the iPhone, Microsoft Surface or even Jeff Han's famous 2006 demonstration at TED, a commercial multitouch display already existed. It's a customizable music control surface called the Jazzmutant Lemur, and it dates back to at least 2004. Under the new name Stantum, Jazzmutant's touchscreens continue to impress, and now that its groundbreaking original finally has a potential competitor in the iPad, company co-founder Guillaume Largillier has granted Create Digital Music a sizable interview to comment on the future of the technology. Amidst jabs at Apple for developing a solution only a "Neanderthal" could love, the co-founder hints that the $2000 Lemur might finally see a price drop, and that the company's decided to license their tech to other multitouch tablet manufacturers. Be sure to bring your table salt before hitting our source link, as the second half of the piece is an editorial very much in Stantum's favor, but you might hold off on the full pinch -- it's a pretty good read nonetheless.
Stantum multitouch Slate PC prototype hands-on
We've had a few run-ins with Stantum before, and never came away less than impressed. This time they sent us their Slate PC concept, which is actually a hacked-up Dell mini 10. The 10-inches of real estate don't seem to hamper Stantum's multitouch, ultra-sensitive and pressure-simulating resistive touchscreen technology one bit. Unfortunately, with stock Windows 7 on here we're not sure this makes much more of a compelling use-case for a "slate" computer than we've seen already littering the halls of CES. Read-on for our full impressions and a video tour.
Stantum shows off resistive multitouch Slate PC, we're awed again
Stantum Japan already got us all giddy and schoolgirlish once, and now that the company's TouchPark has reached the proof of concept stage, we're ready to fawn all over again. Initially compatible only with smartphone hardware, the firmware seems to have been adapted to the x86 instruction set, as it's now perched atop a Dell Mini 10 netbook modded with a resistive touchscreen. Responsiveness and accuracy are both remarkable, with the multitouch feature accommodating as many fingers as you can fit on the screen. There's pressure sensitivity too, and we even get to see the thing used with a paintbrush. A paintbrush. Scalable from 2.5 to 30 inches, this can do all the gestures, swipes and rotations you want, and viewing the video after the break will lead you to conclude the same as us: this needs to be out yesterday.
Stantum's unlimited multitouch meets Mini 10 in a fight to the death (update: now with WiFi, Bluetooth)
The last time we saw Stantum, it was blowin' minds with its PMatrix technology -- and here we are, a mere ten months later, and the company's back with its proof-of-concept Slate PC. Based on the Dell Mini 10 platform, this bad boy features a 10.1-inch "unlimited" touchscreen and new, compact case. In order to save space, the company did away with not only the keyboard and trackpad, but the webcam, WiFi, Bluetooth, and one of the USB ports (bringing the total down to two) as well -- which just might limit the appeal for resellers. You never know. Feel like diving in? Hit the read source link to contact the company, and tell 'em Engadget sent you. [Thanks, Adam] Update: We just received an email from the company telling us that revision 2 of the Slate PC (available now!) includes your beloved WiFi and Bluetooth. Hit that source link for further details.
Stantum's mind-blowing multitouch interface on video!
We just got a look at some amazing touchscreen interaction, running on a humble resistive touchscreen with some OMAP hardware backing it up. Stantum's technology is a software-based refinement to resistive touchscreens that allows for accuracy beyond the pixel density of the display, a complete lack of touchscreen "jitters" and some fairly incredible input methods. Termed "TouchPark," the multitouch framework provides gesture recognition, cursor management and physics processing for phone builders to stick on top of the phone OS (Symbian, Windows Mobile and Android are currently supported), and works with hardware such as Texas Instruments Zoom, Freescale i.MX and ST Nomadic. The PMatrix multitouch firmware allows for unlimited inputs, detection of any contacting object (a finger, a stylus or even a paintbrush) and pressure sensitivity. We played with the demo unit for a bit and were frankly blown away, it's far and away the best touch experience we've ever seen or felt, and the multitouch functionality is just gravy on top. Stantum is targeting resistive touchscreens because they're still considerably cheaper to build than capacitive ones, and from our perspective there seems to be zero tradeoff -- for sensitivity and accuracy this destroys everything else we've seen on the market, capacitive or not. Sadly, there's no word on when this will make it into real, shipping handsets, but we'll certainly be tracking its progress obsessively. Video is after the break.%Gallery-45326%
