ZDNet has discovered that RIM has patented a form of touchscreen LCD. The patent, titled System and Method for Integrating A Touchscreen Within an LCD, describes “a touchscreen which is integrated into an LCD” in more detail than you can shake a stick at. The technology works primarily by detecting displacement of liquid crystal in a display and sending information based on that movement. ZDNet author Russell Shaw pointed out that the patent was published only four months after being filed rather than the usual 18, a very good indicator that the technology will be used soon. The rumors about a touchscreen for the BlackBerry 9000 have been mostly quashed, so it remains to be seen what device the technology will be used in.
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oh, clever.
My concerns after reading the document are that this method of providing a touch screen is not very good. It measures the displacement of liquid crystal. This means that someone with a bigger finger or someone that uses a different surface area will have different displacement than someone using a stylus, or someone with smaller fingers. This definitely can’t be as good as the one on the iPhone, which is a dream to use. It will be similar to other current generation windows mobile devices or worse. I also foresee problems with tracking once the lcd has been displaced, so things like dragging will be problematic. Its going to be a … should use a stylus primarily device. Why don’t they use the same technology that is in the iPhone? The touch screen tech they are using cannot compare.