uTouch: Sensing Touch Gestures on Unmodified LCDs turns regular LCD to touchscreen for $5

[froggyboy604]

Current solutions for enabling touch interaction on existing non-touch LCD screens require adding additional sensors to the interaction surface. We present uTouch, a system that detects and classifies touches and hovers without any modification to the display, and without adding any sensors to the user. Our approach utilizes existing signals in an LCD that are amplified when a user brings their hand near or touches the LCD's front panel. These signals are coupled onto the power lines, where they appear as electromagnetic interference (EMI) which can be sensed using a single device connected elsewhere on the power line infrastructure. We validate our approach with an 11 user, 8 LCD study, and demonstrate a real-time system.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8p9DkwWVmfI

http://emmanuel.cs.washington.edu/research/uTouch/uTouch_CHI2013.pdf

Researchers at the University of Washington’s aptly named Ubiquitous Computing Lab can turn any LCD monitor in your hous into a touchscreen, with nothing more than a $5 sensor that plugs into the wall and some clever software.

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/154258-turning-a-standard-lcd-monitor-into-touchscreen-with-a-5-wall-mounted-sensor

This looks great for people with Windows 8, and other touchscreen based operating systems like Android.

This tech can be used to make cheap tablets from non-touchscreen displays which are not being used since it only cost $5 to install on existing LCDs, and computers.