Multi-touch on resistive touchscreens - possible, at least

[slitchfield]

One thing which Rafe witnessed at MWC was Stantum's demonstrations of some insanely responsive multi-touch applets working on a standard resistive touchscreen. Leaving aside the demo applets (and also Rafe's own comments, he's still writing up MWC as we speak), then surely this type of technology is what Nokia should be building into its touchscreen phones, so that text input can be increased over the currently limited speeds? Demo and more below.

Read on in the full article.

Nokia 5800 resistive screen, brilliant for the incredibly low UK price (anyone tried the insanely accurate handwriting recognition on it?).

Next gen phones are on their way with newer touch technology and higher price tags.

So is it possible to just update or replace the drivers of a Nokia 5800 to get multi-touch on it, or is it hardware based technology?

[Rafe]

There is a hardware component to the technology - it's not just software.

The demo was very impressive and certainly shows how things might develop.

I thought Apple has been awarded a huge multi-touch patent in the USA. I am not sure what this means to all the future multi-touch phones. I know of Google has avoided using multi-touch in their Android phone. Instead a work-around solution is implemented.

[Rafe]

Its not multi-touch thats is patented rather it is the implementation of multi touch (i.e. how the software / hardware ties together) that tends to be what you can patent. Apple's comments on its patents should be taken with a inch of salt.

Wow. That looks awsome!

Now all they need is some way to raise individual sections of the touch screen, so you could make virtual buttons that you could feel without looking at the device.

Raised areas of the screen could easily be done by small transparent braille-like dots to orientate the touch.

the nintendo ds already have multi touch though it's resistive touchscrn

Let's FINALLY lay to rest the notion that either a.) Apple invented multitouch or b.) That other phone manufacturers can't implement multitouch because of Apple patents.

NEITHER are true. There is LOADS of prior art in multitouch, in the US and elsewhere and the US patent office have shown their usual extreme stupidity and ignorance at awarding this patent.

As Rafe suggests multitouch is still perfectly possible and any manufacturer can either challenge Apple's patents (which are a house of cards legally I'd guess), or simply engineer around it, as per this solution.

By the way Android does have multitouch support built in, it's just not enabled. This was due to Apple asking Google to leave it out, and Google bending over and complying.

If Nokia have balls, they should just get on and implement multitouch - this article shows there is no reason not to, and it's a really useful feature.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

If Nokia have balls, they should just get on and implement multitouch - this article shows there is no reason not to, and it's a really useful feature.

There was very good article about Nokia's multitouch patents on finnish technology site called Digitoday few weeks ago. According to to it Nokia has over 100 multitouch related patents.

Here is link if anyone is interested (and understand finnish or tolerates Googletranslate):

digitoday.fi/mobiili/2009/02/04/apple-ei-pelota-nokia-patentoinut-sata-kosketusnayttokeksintoa/20092645/66

And here's one link from that article to one multitouch patent:

wipo.int/pctdb/en/wads.jsp?IA=IB2003003605&LANGUAGE=EN&ID=id00000001 792114&VOL=43&DOC=005768&WO=05/022372&WEEK=10/2005&TYPE=A1&DOC_TYPE=PAMPH&PAGE=1

Sorry, it's apparently impossible to post webaddress without being registered member big post count.
Heres that other link again, add www after copy pasting.
wipo.int/pctdb/en/wads.jsp?IA=IB2003003605&LANGUAGE=EN&ID=id00000001 792114&VOL=43&DOC=005768&WO=05/022372&WEEK=10/2005&TYPE=A1&DOC_TYPE=PAMPH&PAGE=1

I think apple has multi touch under heavy patents. not sure if it includes resistive touch but this my never get into the market if the patents are covering all grounds

> I think apple has multi touch under heavy patents. not sure if it includes resistive touch but this my never get into the market if the patents are covering all grounds

You really didn't read my comment above about this did you? ;-)

There's an interesting demo of multitouch running on a Nokia 5800 over at symbian-freak.com

Zuber