For the past few weeks I have been researching the integration of multi-touch into our daily lives. Multi-touch will be more than a table or desk, with the help of companies like Perceptive Pixel and Microsoft working to narrow the computer/human gap. From the start of my research I had an interest in devices like the iPhone, but I also was interested in the development of this technology and where it will be implemented next. As my research continues I become more and more excited about what the newest multi-touch product will be like and when I will get to use it. As my research continues, I want to broaden my topic, so that I can incorporate speculation on how the multi-touch technology will be benefit the user.
Prior to the start of my project, when I was just brainstorming topic ideas, I didn't think of multi-touch technology as being an adequate candidate against a topic like “the future of journalism”. In fact, I thought that multi-touch technology wasn't going to have enough information available to research. My topic was going to be extra hard because I was going to have to turn the small information I had found into an entire blog post. The truth is, however, that I was completely wrong.
I am now, three months later, extremely excited topic and eager to write more about the current multi-touch products which set themselves apart from their previous generation. Initially, I already knew a sizable amount of information; including an idea of the way it worked, what major products are in the works, and gained from personal experience. I have since learned more about the different types of multi-touch, including how each works. I wrote an article on the three technologies that allow for each device to locate the position of your finger(s) on the screen; but since then, another technology has been put to use that was much harder to understand. From tracking the progress of multi-touch's integration into our daily life, I have found that not only is the consumer market about to conceive dozens of new multi-touch products, but that most of these products are going to be of the innovative kind.
From the beginning, I have been involved with my research on multi-touch technology. However, with my first blogs I was envisioning a blog about the way multi-touch is being applied to even the simplest common devices like a computer mouse or SilverPAC’s touch screen programmable thermostat/power consumption monitor. While now I want to broaden my topic to not only the way that multi-touch technology is being applied, but to the way multi-touch will be used within the product. For example, the way a user will use the multi-touch screen to interact with the computer. I want to broaden my topic because I am seeing that within a multi-touch device like the Google Nexus One or the Motorola Droid the users interface doesn’t support the devices physical multi-touch capabilities. Products like the Wacom Bamboo Touch, which lets the user use his/her hand to scroll documents, rotate pictures, or zoom web pages, actually improve the way the user interacts with the computer. Analyzing the articles that I am reading for common themes has allowed to refine my posts so that I can give the reader a better understanding of what is happening in the world of multi-touch development. Gaining access to the world of multi-touch hasn’t been simple. I have been reading about every new multi-touch device that I find not because it is my homework, but because I want to.
In the next few weeks, I plan on including more information about the product I researched in my blog. It is rumored that Apple will be releasing a new product that has been works for over six years. It has the potential to revolutionize the way people interact with computers. My future blog posts will analyze the user-interface (UI) that products uses. I believe that this aspect of a multi-touch device is extremely important because it’s the UI that will be evolving throughout the next few years. I hope to test out the new apple product and write a review on it for my blog.
Since the start of my research, my understanding of my topic has grown. I am now at the point where I have seen enough to know that my research should include the way the multi-touch capabilities are being applied to a specific product as well as the way multi-touch is being applied. Multi-touch has been depicted for decades in hollywood films, but it’s today that we get to use them.
