DirectTouch from the Tegra 3 offloaded touch input to the CPU, which is mainly used to increase sampling rate and reduce processing time. It didn't really have anything to do with water. Also, pretty much all the Tegra line had atrocious SoCs. Also, I don't think DirectTouch even shipped on any devices, and they later opted for DirectStylus on their Note tablets.
I'd love to see this combined with Microsoft's 1ms high-performance touch. Touchscreens might actually be enjoyable to use! https://youtu.be/vOvQCPLkPt4
How is this (MS' 1ms system) useful in actually existing devices? Apple gave a talk about touch latency at WWDC. There are two essential points that gate what you can do: - under normal conditions, the reason you care about this latency is to control what you see. So you are gated by how fast things are displayed. Among other things, for now that means you are gated by the 60Hz frame rate - for current programming paradigms, you're also gated by the event loop (and that in turn is, in current programming paradigms) gated by the frame rate.
What this means is that essentially, unless you plan to boil the ocean of display and event loop technology, the best you can do is operate more efficiently within these constraints. Apple, in iOS8 and earlier, had 4 frames of latency between touch and updated display. In iOS9 through a variety of techniques, they pull this down to 2 frames on older iOS devices and on iPad Air2 (which has 120Hz touch sampling) down to 1.5 frames.
They didn't discuss hardware smarts in doing this (eg whether they have some aspects of the touch controller embedded on either the M8 or the A8) but I found their discussion of the SW/architecture aspects compelling, and I suspect these alternative systems for super low latency touch are basically useless on actually existing platforms, in terms of fitting into the rest of the current paradigm.
I have iOS 9 on iPhone 6 plus. The touch performance is no where near 2 frames. Maybe when scrolling extremely slow. In conclusion, this also depends on how fast you're scrolling (and I'm not talking about unrealistic speeds, just normal scrolling for browsing web pages).
So they got inspired by Nvidia and are trying this too. The problem is that in high end discrete can do better while in budget integration with the display driver is more efficient. Sure the touch controller is just another sensor so you could connect it to a sensor hub/DSP and manage it like all the other sensors to create new things.
I like the idea...there's plenty of room for improvement in the touch arena. The adoption question, focusing on the droplet rejection scenario will ultimately depend on how many phones/tablets become waterproof. I'm hoping all of them end up being IP67 or better at some point.
Finally, droplet rejection! I always drip on my phone and tablet while drinking, speaking excitedly, or just going for a relaxing stroll in the rain. Sometimes it can be a real problem, as I use the devices to remote control the emergency red button of a nuclear facility.
More important question is whether this can be used to improve the "accidental touch" and "side touch" prevention that Android sorely lacks right now. As phone bezels get thinner and thinner, and screen sizes get bigger and bigger, this is going to become more of an issue. Stretching your hand across the screen leads to a lot of inadvertent palm/side-of-thumb touches that cause issues with input. Especially if you are trying to touch something near the top corners (like the copy/paste menu bar) while the keyboard is open.
We’ve updated our terms. By continuing to use the site and/or by logging into your account, you agree to the Site’s updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
13 Comments
Back to Article
Murloc - Tuesday, August 18, 2015 - link
first!r3loaded - Tuesday, August 18, 2015 - link
I don't think so, Nvidia have a similar system called DirectTouch in their Tegra SoCs, so this isn't the first example of such technology.boyang1724 - Tuesday, August 18, 2015 - link
DirectTouch from the Tegra 3 offloaded touch input to the CPU, which is mainly used to increase sampling rate and reduce processing time. It didn't really have anything to do with water. Also, pretty much all the Tegra line had atrocious SoCs. Also, I don't think DirectTouch even shipped on any devices, and they later opted for DirectStylus on their Note tablets.girishp - Tuesday, August 18, 2015 - link
Murloc like many others love to be the first commenter on any article. "First" had nothing to do with Qualcomm doing it first or not.nathanddrews - Tuesday, August 18, 2015 - link
I'd love to see this combined with Microsoft's 1ms high-performance touch. Touchscreens might actually be enjoyable to use!https://youtu.be/vOvQCPLkPt4
name99 - Tuesday, August 18, 2015 - link
How is this (MS' 1ms system) useful in actually existing devices?Apple gave a talk about touch latency at WWDC. There are two essential points that gate what you can do:
- under normal conditions, the reason you care about this latency is to control what you see. So you are gated by how fast things are displayed. Among other things, for now that means you are gated by the 60Hz frame rate
- for current programming paradigms, you're also gated by the event loop (and that in turn is, in current programming paradigms) gated by the frame rate.
What this means is that essentially, unless you plan to boil the ocean of display and event loop technology, the best you can do is operate more efficiently within these constraints.
Apple, in iOS8 and earlier, had 4 frames of latency between touch and updated display.
In iOS9 through a variety of techniques, they pull this down to 2 frames on older iOS devices and on iPad Air2 (which has 120Hz touch sampling) down to 1.5 frames.
They didn't discuss hardware smarts in doing this (eg whether they have some aspects of the touch controller embedded on either the M8 or the A8) but I found their discussion of the SW/architecture aspects compelling, and I suspect these alternative systems for super low latency touch are basically useless on actually existing platforms, in terms of fitting into the rest of the current paradigm.
girishp - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
I have iOS 9 on iPhone 6 plus. The touch performance is no where near 2 frames. Maybe when scrolling extremely slow. In conclusion, this also depends on how fast you're scrolling (and I'm not talking about unrealistic speeds, just normal scrolling for browsing web pages).jjj - Tuesday, August 18, 2015 - link
So they got inspired by Nvidia and are trying this too. The problem is that in high end discrete can do better while in budget integration with the display driver is more efficient.Sure the touch controller is just another sensor so you could connect it to a sensor hub/DSP and manage it like all the other sensors to create new things.
vortmax2 - Tuesday, August 18, 2015 - link
I like the idea...there's plenty of room for improvement in the touch arena. The adoption question, focusing on the droplet rejection scenario will ultimately depend on how many phones/tablets become waterproof. I'm hoping all of them end up being IP67 or better at some point.sheh - Tuesday, August 18, 2015 - link
Finally, droplet rejection! I always drip on my phone and tablet while drinking, speaking excitedly, or just going for a relaxing stroll in the rain. Sometimes it can be a real problem, as I use the devices to remote control the emergency red button of a nuclear facility.phoenix_rizzen - Tuesday, August 18, 2015 - link
More important question is whether this can be used to improve the "accidental touch" and "side touch" prevention that Android sorely lacks right now. As phone bezels get thinner and thinner, and screen sizes get bigger and bigger, this is going to become more of an issue. Stretching your hand across the screen leads to a lot of inadvertent palm/side-of-thumb touches that cause issues with input. Especially if you are trying to touch something near the top corners (like the copy/paste menu bar) while the keyboard is open.toyotabedzrock - Tuesday, August 18, 2015 - link
I hate washing my hands and trying to touch ending up with a droplet that makes my tablet go nuts.This latency reduction would help on Samsung tablets that have a pen input, but I doubt Samsung will switch to Qualcomm now.
kenansadhu - Tuesday, August 18, 2015 - link
It's very likely that Samsung would use Qualcomm again in the future. One of their exec said so few months back.