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Touchscreen offers new opportunity for PC brands: An interview with Acer president | 443 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Acer seems to be alone on this.
Authored by: albert on Sunday, December 30 2012 @ 12:18 PM EST
Footguns, courtesy Microsoft.

As Pogo said, "We have met the enemy, and he is us!"

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Touchscreen offers new opportunity for PC brands ... - Niche
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 30 2012 @ 04:35 PM EST

I agree with those that recoil from touchscreen interfaces as the primary console for desktop systems. But there is another niche - as a secondary console for headless servers and those PC's that have smartphones regularly jacked in to upload photos and download assorted documents.

Anybody who has shopped for a rack-mount console will have experienced a certain amount of sticker shock at the prices charged for a display and keyboard that can be tucked away in a server rack. So why not have the console be something like a Nexus 7 and a suitable cable that can hang from a sysop's / sysadmin's belt ? (NB - I'm aware of remote console apps that provide a CLI, maybe even a GUI, over wireless. But there are security and operational advantages to a direct connection.)

In the case of desktop systems it's taking advantage of two necessities - a need to recharge and the speed / cheapness of hardlink uploads. There a touch-centric remote control app would be a good fit for someone who finds a mouse awkward for part of their work.

MB94128

Former user of pcAnywhere 4.5/5/Win.
It was a remote control and terminal emulation (4.5 only) app.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Touchscreen offers new opportunity for PC brands: An interview with Acer president
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 30 2012 @ 05:30 PM EST

I wrote some software to control a number of test systems on several production lines, and I made the buttons simple and extra large so that the customer could install a touch screen later if they wanted to (they didn't want to spend the money on them at the time).

However, the buttons looked so large and inviting, that people kept trying to press them anyway even if they knew they weren't touch screen (even the guy who made the decision to not install touch screen monitors kept doing it). Touch screens have been quite common in factories for at least 20 years. People without any experience with touch screens find them very easy and natural to use. However, the application has to be carefully designed to make use of the touch screen. Trying to use the Windows XP, Vista, or 7 GUI via a touch screen driver is an exercise in frustration and in fact for some things it's nearly impossible.

Touch screens are quite common in industry, but almost all of them run single purpose applications and you never see the OS (which usually isn't Windows anyway). I would like to see a touch oriented Linux distro (other than Android that is) for these types of applications, but there isn't one yet. Ubuntu shows the most promise here (and Unity is a very nice mouse and keyboard GUI), but they have a long way to go yet.

I don't think that touch screens are the right choice when sitting at a desk. When at a desk, you want to rest your arms on the desk or on the arms of the chair. What touch is about isn't for people shuffling papers at a desk however. It's for everyone else who doesn't spend their day in a swivel chair. Just like touch isn't the best thing for people who sit at a desk, a mouse and keyboard just don't work for people who don't sit at a desk. This was recognised decades ago by people who design manufacturing applications. It has just taken this long for the price of touch hardware to come down enough for it to filter through to more general applications.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Touchscreen support good for remote logins
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, December 31 2012 @ 12:51 AM EST
Actually, touchscreen support is great for remote logins from a phone or tablet
through software like logmein or splashtop. That way you don't have to mess
with keyboard/mouse emulation though it's still not enough to make me want
Windows 8 even if Teamviewer/Splashtop now have full Windows 8 gesture support.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Touchscreen offers new opportunity for PC brands: An interview with Acer president
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, December 31 2012 @ 07:51 PM EST
Touchscreens fail Section 508 requirements in the US, and similar legislation
in other countries.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Touchscreen offers new opportunity for PC brands: An interview with Acer president
Authored by: PJ on Tuesday, January 01 2013 @ 02:01 PM EST
Touchscreen offers new opportunity for PC brands ... - Clickie
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 30 2012 @ 03:47 PM EST

"Touchscreen offers new opportunity for PC brands: An interview with Acer president" (DigiTimes article, 27 Dec. 2012) Clickie.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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