Industry info - A Brief History Of Touchscreen Technology
Time:2023-03-09
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Years ago, touchscreen technology was fictional, as it could only be seen in movies and books. Significant technological advancements have emerged from the generations that have passed, especially for touchscreens, which are now prevalent in our daily lives. Touchscreen technology can be traced far back in history.
History: Where It All Started
Touchscreen technology started back in 1965 but failed to become mainstream popular until 2007 when Apple released the first iPhone.
1965: E.A. Johnson
The idea of the touchscreen interface was recorded in October 1965 when an engineer in Malvern, England, specifically at the Royal Radar Establishment, aimed to develop a touchscreen to aid traffic control. His name was Eric Arthur Johnson.
E.A. Johnson wrote and published another more detailed and extensive paper about touchscreens. This paper explains how touchscreen technology operated through pictures of prototypes and diagrams. Moreover, in 1969, E.A. Johnson was granted a patent for his invention.
1970: Dr. G. Samuel Hurst
While capacitive touchscreens were the first to be invented, resistive touchscreens surpassed them in initial years. Dr. G. Samuel Hurst created resistive touchscreens nearly by accident. At the time, Hurst was conducting research at the University of Kentucky, which attempted to patent his design to safeguard this unintentional discovery from replication. Still, its scientific roots made it appear as though its only value was in the lab.
Hurst began an after-hours investigation after returning to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 1970. He discovered that a conductive cover sheet was just the thing that the screen needed. This breakthrough paved the way for what we now know as resistive touch technology, which he and his team called elographics. The group finally patented the first curved glass touch interface.
1984: Bob Boie
Nimish Mehta created the first human-controlled multitouch device at the University of Toronto in 1982. Myron Krueger, an American computer artist who built an optical system that could capture hand gestures, pioneered gesture interaction immediately after. Touchscreens became extensively commercialized in the early 1980s. When Bell Labs‘ Bob Boie created the first transparent multitouch screen interface, it significantly advanced multitouch technology. Moreover, this allowed users to alter visuals with their fingertips.
2007: Apple
Apple was the first company to launch a touchscreen smartphone in 2007 successfully. Because the iPhone has a compact, user-friendly form and minimal multitouch functionality, users cannot hold the shift key with one finger while typing a capital letter with another in keyboard mode. However, it enables the pinching capability for zooming in and out of maps and pictures, invented by researcher Krueger. The first iPhone helped touchscreen technologies become popular worldwide.
