Lorcan Dempsey's weblog: Touch screen

Touch screen

When we tried out the Kindle a while ago, my son immediately began to touch the screen. But no, the only effect was to leave marks.

This morning in our local Border's I noticed that they had little notices stuck above the screens of their enquiry system. They said that these were not touch screen systems and that people should use the tracker ball and button.

It is interesting how things come to be expected ....

Kindle again

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2 comments so far

Posted by Touch Screen Fan on May 14, 2008

I love touch screens but one of the most attractive features of electronic paper is that it's nearly as easy on the eyes as regular paper. If you were to put a touch screen overlay on top of it, you'd lose some of that advantage. Also, I think physical pressure is probably more likely to damage the display than a standard LCD, so the overlay would have to be pretty rigid to protect the underlying electronic paper.

At some point electronic paper may become cheap enough that the reduction in lifespan from a "thin" touch screen layer would be acceptable.

Posted by laura on May 14, 2008

That's funny--the first OPAC I ever remember using had a touchscreen, which would let you drill down through alphabetical lists of titles, authors, subject headings, and call numbers.