WriteSense digital pen tech for capacitive touchscreens announced

by Laura June posted Dec 17th 2008 at 12:28PM

Folks with capacitive touchscreen devices like the G1 and the iPhone who miss the glorious days of the stylus should be happy to hear this news. InPlay Technologies has announced that they've developed tech for a new RF pen called WriteSense which eliminates the necessity for a separate digitizer -- it communicates directly with the capacitive touch sensors. Essentially, this will mean smaller and cheaper RF pens, which is probably a good thing since capacitive touchscreens will likely continue their assault on resistive touchscreens (cough, Nokia). The pencil doesn't stand a chance.

[Via Gotta Be Mobile]

Filed under: Peripherals, Misc

Tags: capacitive touchscreen, CapacitiveTouchscreen, digital pen, DigitalPen, inplay, pen, touchscreen, write sense, WriteSense

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

BIG ROD @ Dec 17th 2008 6:52PM

I don't know why everybody is making such a fuss over capacitive vs resistive touchscreen technology; each technology has its pluses and minuses is heavenly dependent upon the operating system's GUI icons.

I think capacitive technology serves Apple and the iPhone very well because the iPhone's GUI was built form the ground up with large enough icons for finger touch tapping (as opposed to finger nail tapping or stylus tapping).

Then you have the Windows Mobile operating system and other operating systems which are more suited to resistive technology because of the smaller icons that are used, and therefore needing the use of your finger nail or stylus for more precision tapping. That's just the nature of the beast because legacy operating systems like Windows Mobile and Blackberry, for example were designed to be used with styluses, trackball and click wheel buttons. It's just that touchscreen technology is all the rave right now and companies are scurrying to make touchscreen technology work with these existing operating systems. I don't see devices that use Windows Mobile, Blackberry or other OS using capacitive technology because it simply isn't practical unless there is a tremendous undertaking of re-engineering the GUI from the ground up with larger icons like the iPhone. And even then, as long as drop-down menus are still a big part of some operating systems, we'll still need resistive technology to select those small drop-down options unless those are made to be bigger as well. I think the human experience is just so used to physical buttons and tactile feedback, but there is something to be said of humans evolving to the next level and maybe a total touchscreen experience without buttons is one of those things in the future. I personally prefer a combination of touch screen and physical keyboarding to type on devices such as the Sony Xperia X1.

I think for now both capacitive and resistive technologies can co-exist and one is not better than the other.

Neutral

lyskxx @ Dec 18th 2008 7:49AM

I don't see what the big deal is with capacitive touch screens either. I personally don't like them, and it makes me mad that a lot of people feel that they will become the dominant choice in future device models. I am a girl and, like a lot of other girls, I have nails. Having a capacitive touch screen on devices such as the IPhone makes it nearly impossible for me to use because of my nails. A lot of girls that I know also experience this. I feel that resistive touch screens have more benefits. You can use your nail, a stylus, and even your finger tip if you need to. Capacitive just basically limits you to your finger tip. It drives me nuts. I just try and try to understand why people love capacitive so much, but I would personally never buy a phone that used a capacitive touch screen. Touch screen phones have been all I have bought in the past three years, and I go through A LOT of phones.