Touchscreen Technologies

Current Touch Tech

Currently there are five major touch technologies: resistive, capacitive, infrared, acoustic, and Wacom’s electromagnetic-based technology.  We have tried both resistive and acoustic based technologies, and both have shortcomings.  Acoustic tech is very inaccurate.  Resistive tech is fairly accurate, but tends to have imperfections and dead spots.  Infrared technology is widely used on most consumer multitouch monitors, but presses are recognized about a quarter of an inch above the screen, making writing on the screen difficult.  Capacitive touch requires specialized styli to write on, and the tech is not very scalable to higher screen resolutions.