Multi-Touch LCDs: Will they be ready when Windows 7 is released ?
The demonstration of the Windows 7 multi-touch feature was interesting but I think most users have asked themselves how likely it would be that they would be having a multi-touch LCD monitor in their homes at the time Windows 7 is released to the public. If you currently look at hardware retailers you notice that touchscreen monitors are rare and expensive. Newegg for instance lists 72 touchscreen monitors with a price range of $200 to $2000 of which one has a size greater 20″, sixteen a size between 18″ - 19″ and the other 55 a size of 17″ or less.
A 19″ touchscreen LCD monitor is not available for less than $699 at Newegg currently, that’s pretty expensive for a soon to be mainstream technology. There is still time, between 1 and 2 years, before Windows 7 will be released and this likely means that hardware manufacturers will be able to provide better and cheaper touchscreen displays.
One of the first companies was Albatron who demonstrated on this year’s Computex a 22″ touchscreen LCD display which would retail for roughly 120% of the price of a usual LCD without touchscreen feature. That surely sounds promising and a little bit surprising at the same time. It would make touchscreen LCD monitors affordable to the mass market.
The demonstration was not running on a Windows 7 system obviously at the time of the fair. It should be working fine on Windows XP and Windows Vista and this would lead to the prediction that most touchscreen features of Windows 7 will sooner or later be ported by dedicated Open-Source and freeware developers to those other two operating systems.
To answer the question. Yes they will be ready and affordable at the time Windows 7 will be released. Would you pay an additional 20% to get a touchscreen LCD monitor ?
Bookmark & Share
Loading ...
"What is the point of the website? Let Microsoft die and some good products creep in. Maybe Google will step ...
Here i found the futur of MycrosoftSeven7; http://www.avenuecom.fr/accueil/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=39
Maybe the next logo for windows suite. Fake or not ? 
I live in a one bedroom flat.
In the bedroom, I have a an old Pentium2 running Linux, connected via ethernet ...
Michael,
Again, you're not thinking in the future like these companies are. If you want to talk present day, there's ...
@ James Harding
It's not going to have the same interface. Early milestones of 'Longhorn' looked exactly like XP, remember? Vista ...
Your post makes one think! Great article. Thanks for allowing me to comment! 
I wanna know something about this new OS <WIndows7> :
1.It will be somekind of Windows Vista upgraded but with another ...
Comment by Rufus Thorne on 3 September 2008:
I live in a one bedroom flat.
In the bedroom, I have a an old Pentium2 running Linux, connected via ethernet to a Belkin N1 Vision wireless router. This acts as an extremely efficient hardware firewall. This is a headless system.
In the main room I have a Pentium 4 dual-core desktop, which is my main work machine. and is ethernet to the firewall machine. Two 24″ monitors
I’m rnating a bit, but I’ll explain why in a minute…
My linux box, original Apple iMac G3, Dell laptop and some old PCs which form a small BOINC farm - all these machines
I have no practical use whatsoever for touch-sensitive features through any of this. I will probably never upgrade to Windows seven. I read touch screen monitors above 20″ don’t exist yet for less than about $900 each. Sure, When the software matures there will be affordable compatible hardware, but I still don’t plain need it since my machine is about three years old now. 2GB of RAM and that’s the max for the motherboard. Readyboost 4GB USB proves a welcome relieve to Vista on it, bless ^_^
Keyboard and mouse, even wacom graphics tablet is more than adequate because applying that to the ever-increasing trend of wanting bigger screens in your house, 52″ HD television for example. You know you want it even though you also know it’s just stupid to have that in your house :-P
MediaCenter and remote is what I use regularly. As someone below mentioned, must get a wireless hand then. Touchscreen monitors will be just a fad as long as you can sit on the sofa and se a remote with a small touchpad on it. Windows sideshow, anyone?
Sorry for the rant. Just wanted to empty my mind of stuff this morning.
Comment by Corey on 3 September 2008:
Michael,
Again, you’re not thinking in the future like these companies are. If you want to talk present day, there’s actually an engineer who has his entire house wired up to a server farm in the basement, complete with a virtual personality running the house. He uses barcode scanners at the trash can to notify the system when things need to be ordered (and the system does order food automatically), RFID tags to identify members of the house for purposes of climate control, music and lighting preferences, and even to unlock and automatically open the front door. Matter of fact, I believe Bill Gates has quite a bit of this integrated in his own house as well.
We’re talking about tomorrow, though. These systems will inevitibly trickle down to your average consumer and it’s simply a matter of when, not if.
A keyboard will likely remain an input device for quite some time until brainwave sensing technology becomes affordable for consumers and does the part. For phones, the touch screen will ultimately prevail over physical keyboards as technology adapts to allow it to become more user-friendly. Who says the next big next phone won’t have physical feedback through a touch screen?
We’re talking about building floating cities and bridges of epic length…you’re still stuck on keyboards and mice. Catch my drift?
Read Corey’s latest blog post….Canon 50D announced officially!>>>
Comment by Michael on 2 September 2008:
Corey
All these devices you talk about already exist and are in use today. They are of course a welcome development of convenience for the consumer.
They are designed from the ground up around touch technology as attaching a physical mouse or keybord would be impractical, though not necessarilly less efficient and indeed some have had these devices added back on! Such as the PDA keyboard as an example. More and more phones are also integrating keyboards back into them as they are faster to use. Look at the blackberry and other such phones.
Ordering your food from the fridge is not practical, but can become convenient especially in the future, when/if RFID becomes more fully implemented. Even so, I am sure I would rather sit comfortably in front of my PC with a keyborad and mouse then stand in front of my fridge tapping at a screen for more then a few moments. Sure once set up and all the ‘favourite’ foods are added to the listings made available on the fridge then it becomes convenient. But the admin is done with a PC which remains mouse and keyboard driven.
I wonder how long your last comment wold have taken to write without a keyboard.
Comment by Corey on 2 September 2008:
Rufus, I believe you have that quite backwards. The average user has no need for a mouse. You’re thinking way to narrow minded and present-day.
Over 90% of scientists the world has ever seen live today, and 85% of engineers the world has ever seen live today. We’re in an economy that sees more progress in a single day than was seen throughout the entire term of the Roman Empire.
In the future, we’re going to see even more integration of computers in our everyday life, and the bulk of this integration is not going to be through the personal computer. Devices like your refrigerator will order your food, your car will keep an eye on traffic and weather, your phone might become a replacement wallet, and all of these devices will have the most intuitive method for interaction with the human: touch.
Read Corey’s latest blog post….Canon 50D announced officially!>>>
Comment by Rufus Thorne on 2 September 2008:
Touch-screen technology is all very well and good, but keyboard and mouse will always be the predominant method for communicating with a computer. The average home user has absolutely no practical use for touch technology, seeing it as just a novel feature. Sure, you can draw pretty pictures using multiple fingers in MSPaint, or zoom a Google map, but that really is it.
I recently bought two 24″ widescreen monitors, cost me around £200 (about $400) and I sure as hell cannot afford to replace them just because Windows 7 is coming and I ‘might’ want to touch something instead of clicking on it.
The only practical use I can see for this technology is presentations, possibly military use, and places such as hotel lobby. This is precisely the market that Microsoft Surface caters towards.
Comment by Michael on 18 July 2008:
Corey,
The mouse certainly has NOT changed fundamentally since its invention. Fundamentally, it is an input device that through software allows you to move a pointer around the screen with a small movement/effort of the hand and interact with ‘items’ on the screen by pressing a button on the mouse. The addition of extra buttons or making it wireless or laser operated does not constitute a change in this fundamental.
The addition of a scroll wheel is not a fundamental change either, it is a progressive addition and is not fundamental to the usage.
The mouse (and keyboard for that matter) is just one of those inventions that was 98% right first time. Its continued use today by pretty much EVERY PC user demonstrates this fact.
The studies that you suggest may well state that touch technology devices are more efficient for some non mainstream tasks. Of course they may well be, for NON mainstream tasks. Also these studies are often carried out by companies that are trying to sell these products and make money from them!!
If you think the studies you refer to show trend is changing toward other input devices then please show figures that demonstrates the ratio of non mouse PCs in use to PCs in use with a mouse over the past say 10 years or so. I would suggest (at a guess) the trend is the exact opposite to what you are implying.
In the last year or so laptops have outsold desktops, so I do concede the the touch pad on laptops may twist these figures. Ask any laptop user what they think of the touch pad and most will say they dislike them and would prefer to use a mouse, they are slower to use and easily knocked when typing. Personally I always plug in a mouse and disable the touch screen on mine.
I think that your comments about using a touch based interface for Microsoft office will stay just as they are -a novelty. Read the comments below yours. They all suggest that, in the main, using your hands any more then they already do is a waste of effort and more tiring to use. And as most PCs in existence are used for office based (or very similar) tasks I support these comments entirely.
I wholly welcome the development of new ideas for (1)cheaper peripherals that (2)improve efficiency, (3)reduce learning curves and are (4)less tiring to use . In my opinion, for now they seem to miss at least 3 of these objectives every time.
I did read about a brain wave input controller being developed which sounds like yet another novel idea …but then you would have to concentrate at work and god help the users after a liquid lunch!
Comment by D# on 18 July 2008:
with a wireless mouse i can click from 3 meters away, with a touchscreen….. well i guess i’ll need to buy a wireless hand by then