what is a touch screen?

Question

what is a touch screen

Answer 1

A touch screen is a monitor that you touch to select options, instead of clicking with a mouse.

You can find touch screens on information point computers in public and on things like sat nav.

Answer 2

A touch screen is pretty much self explainatory. You use the screen to chose your menus. Just touch the screen and it works like using a mouse with the point and click.

Answer 3

A screen that you touch.

Answer 4

have u noticed the free internet computers in the subway/broadway some of them are touch screen. they are called touch screan because u can operate them by clicking on the computer screen with your finger. many laptops now have the same mechanism....

Answer 5

it is aspecial screen designed to let you communicate with it by just a touch of a finger on the screen pad

Answer 6

lets see, could it be a screen that you touch

Answer 7

a touch screen is like ur paper. where u can write acording to u. in the form of stick pen either ur finger. and if dont have habit of typing on keyboard its best for u. and alsoo remember u need to so confidednt that ur writing is true.

Answer 8

it is where you can touch the screen by your hands nor anything that touches it, it will interact.

Answer 9

where u touch the screen(LOL)

Answer 10

Touchscreen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Podium touchscreenTouchscreens, touch screens, touch panels or touchscreen panels are display overlays which are typically either pressure-sensitive (resistive), electrically-sensitive (capacitive), acoustically-sensitive (SAW - surface acoustic wave) or photo-sensitive (infra-red). The effect of such overlays allows a display to be used as an input device, removing the keyboard and/or the mouse as the primary input device for interacting with the display's content. Such displays can be attached to computers or, as terminals, to networks.

Contents [hide]
1 Applications
2 Touchscreen technology
3 Touchscreen deployment
4 See also
5 References
6 External links



[edit]
Applications

The Nintendo DS uses a touchscreen as a primary controlling deviceTouchscreens have become commonplace since the invention of the electronic touch interface in 1971 by Dr. Samuel C. Hurst. They have become familiar in retail settings, on point of sale systems, on ATMs and on PDAs where a stylus is sometimes used to manipulate the GUI and to enter data. The popularity of smart phones, PDAs, portable game consoles and many types of information appliances is driving the demand for, and the acceptance of, touchscreens.

The HP-150 was among one of the world's earliest commercialized touch screen computers. It actually does not have a touch screen in the strict sense, but a 9" Sony CRT surrounded by infrared transmitters and receivers which detect the position of any non-transparent object on the screen.

Touchscreens are popular in heavy industry and in other situations, such as museum displays or room automation, where keyboards and mice do not allow a satisfactory, intuitive, rapid, or accurate interaction by the user with the display's content.

Historically, the touchscreen sensor and its accompanying controller-based firmware have been made available by a wide array of after-market system integrators and not by display, chip or motherboard manufacturers. With time, however, display manufacturers and System On Chip (SOC) manufacturers worldwide have acknowledged the trend toward acceptance of touchscreens as a highly desirable user interface component and have begun to integrate touchscreen functionality into the fundamental design of their products.

[edit]
Touchscreen technology
There are a number of types of touch screen technology:

Resistive: A resistive touch screen panel is coated with a thin metallic electrically conductive and resistive layer that causes a change in the electrical current which is registered as a touch event and sent to the controller for processing. Some resistive panels can estimate the area (and hence the pressure) of a touch based on calculations from the resistances. Resistive touch screen panels are generally more affordable but offer only 75% clarity and the layer can be damaged by sharp objects. Resistive touch screen panels are not affected by outside elements such as dust or water and are the most commonly used today.

Surface wave: Surface wave technology uses ultrasonic waves that pass over the touch screen panel. When the panel is touched, a portion of the wave is absorbed. This change in the ultrasonic waves registers the position of the touch event and sends this information to the controller for processing. Surface wave touch screen panels can be damaged by outside elements. Contaminants on the surface can also interfere with the functionality of the touchscreen.

Capacitive: A capacitive touch screen panel is coated with a material, typically indium tin oxide that conducts a continuous electrical current across the sensor. The sensor therefore exhibits a precisely controlled field of stored electrons in both the horizontal and vertical axes - it achieves capacitance. The human body is also an electrical device which has stored electrons and therefore also exhibits capacitance. When the sensor's 'normal' capacitance field (its reference state) is altered by another capacitance field, i.e., someone's finger, electronic circuits located at each corner of the panel measure the resultant 'distortion' in the sine wave characteristics of the reference field and send the information about the event to the controller for mathematical processing. Capacitive sensors must be touched with a conductive device being held by a bare hand or a finger, unlike resistive and surface wave panels that can use anything that can point, such as a finger or stylus. Capacitive touch screens are not affected by outside elements and have high clarity.

Infrared: An infrared touch screen panel employs one of two very different methodologies. One method used thermal induced changes of the surface resistance. This method was sometimes slow and required warm hands. Another method is an array of vertical and horizontal IR sensors that detected the interruption of a modulated light beam near the surface of the screen.

Strain Gauge: In a strain gauge configuration the screen is spring mounted on the four corners and strain gauges are used to determine deflection when the screen is touched. This technology can also measure the Z-axis. Typical application falls in protecting new touch-screen railway ticket machines from vandalism.

Optical Imaging: A relatively-modern development in touch screen technology, two or more image sensors are placed around the edges (usually the corners) of the screen. Infrared backlights are placed in the camera's field of view on the other sides of the screen. A touch shows up as a shadow and each pair of cameras can then be triangulated to locate the touch. This technology is growing in popularity, due to its scalability, versatility, and affordability, especially for larger units.

Dispersive Signal Technology: This is the newest technology, introduced in 2002. It uses sensors to detect the mechanical energy in the glass that occur due to a touch. Complex algorithms then interpret this information and provide the actual location of the touch. The technology claims to be unaffected by dust and other outside elements, including scratches. Since there is no need for additional elements on screen, it also claims to provide excellent optical clarity. Also, since mechanical vibrations are used to detect a touch event, any object can be used to generate these events, including fingers and styluses. The technology is still quite new and is not currently widely available.