A recent Acer press release is promoting the benefits of its newest touch enabled monitor (T231H) that boasts Windows 7 certified touch interface. According to the company, it brings "…the interactive experience right on your everyday desktop." At $450 retail, this 23-inch 1920 x 1080 resolution panel with 2ms response time, 80K:1 dynamic contrast ratio and max brightness of 300 cd/m2 looks to be the perfect monitor replacement. But, will the overlay touch system really add value to desktop PC users (or TV views) who are now required to literally reach out and touch the display to navigate–in a somewhat unnatural (non ergonomic) way?

Steve Sechrist
Senior Analyst and Editor

Most Sci-Fi buffs point to the human computer interface exemplified by Tom Cruise interacting with the computer by gesturing and gyrating in almost dance like fashion in Minority Report. More recently, the large transparent interactive hand gesture driven displays shown in Ironman 2 and in somewhat lesser fashion, in the blockbuster Avatar, point to the future of this interface.

Much like 2001 A Space Odyssey set the future tone of space exploration for that generation, culminating with the moon walk in 1969 (and not quite so elaborate space station in more recent times), these films can represent a benchmark vision of the future. But do these visions drive the research to achieve these dreams or does research drive the technology that creates the future?

Here’s how Erica Naone of MITs Technology Review said it in her recent Blog on the subject: "There’s a long tradition of the interfaces envisioned in movies becoming research projects in real life. For years, techies have chased the "Minority Report interface" inspired by a scene in the Tom Cruise action flick in which the main character does his police work by donning a pair of gloves and diving into a hands-on manipulation of his data. Johnny Lee, a researcher in Microsoft’s hardware division, gained acclaim for hacking together a version of the interface using a Nintendo Wii. The company Oblong has been working for years on the g-speak interface, a slicker implementation of the same concept.

For proof of this, look no further than the body of gesture based companies working on this new technology. For a good overview of the top sixteen, see games.venturebeat.com and Damian Rollison’s article of Feb 9. (We’ll go into more detail here in our next issue of Large Display Report due out on July 1st.)

Suffice it to say it’s not the technology, but rather, "The real science is in the interaction" according to Naone. "What makes the interface look most attractive is how physically involved [Ironman character Tony] Stark becomes in design. With the power of voice and gesture combined, Stark is able to give small, quiet commands when contemplative, and become more expansive and hands-on when excited. The vision of a computing device that’s able to adapt so smoothly to the user’s mood and circumstance is compelling to say the least."

So sorry Acer, but a touch enabled monitor, that simply bolts on a specific variety touch panel, and Win7 touch certification without any real thought of use or comfort will probably fall short in the market, and could potentially do more harm than good. Perhaps Bill Buxton of Microsoft Research labs said it best in his recent talk at 2010 SID (31.1). "But while the technologies will continue to evolve, what must not get lost along the way is that it is just that, a technology, a means to an end."