News: Turn Anything Into Touchscreen

A new polymer film embedded with nanowires has the ability to turn any flat surface into a touchscreen, including plastic, wood or under the surface of glass.

Developed by Portuguese firm Displax, its new touchscreen surface has the ability to recognise both finger-touches and breath. It can detect up to 16 touch points on a 50-inch screen, but will soon be able to process up to 65 fingers, according to Pocket-Lint.

The technology doesn’t even need to be on the surface, but will still work on the other side so long as it isn’t thicker than 15mm. It can also be utilised on curved surfaces, making it possible to use the technology on objects such as globes.

“You can turn a table into a multitouch table,” Miguel Fonseca, chief business officer of Displax told Pocket-Lint.

Displax is reportedly working with some major manufacturers to bring the technology to market – but won’t let the cat out of the bag about just which major manufacturers yet. Exciting stuff.