Many hands can touch screens

Enhancements to touch screen family include support for the latest Windows Vista operating system software and support for multiple players or controllers.

3M has added new software and hardware developments to its MicroTouch ClearTek II capacitive touch screens, including multiple player capability, Windows Vista support, and improved wear resistance.

"Our ClearTek II touch screens are the most popular capacitive touch screens on the market today for their durability, reliability, vibrant optics and environmental robustness in a wide variety of applications", comments Francesco Fasoglio, European Marketing Manager, 3M Touch Systems Division.

"Ongoing investment in new enhancements to our touch electronics and software will further strengthen our ClearTek II offering and ensure customers benefit from the highest levels of performance and functionality".

The MT 7.12 Software, part of the MicroTouch software suite, includes Windows Vista-compatible touch drivers and utilities for 32bit operating systems, which can be downloaded from the 3Mtouch.com driver site.

This is the first MT 7 software version to offer multiple player/controller support.

This feature is of particular benefit for gaming developers in applications such as roulette and horse race betting, where there can be multiple players all placing bets simultaneously.

Training simulation, control systems such as CCTV, self-service kiosks and educational systems are other potential applications.

Effectively multiple touch-screen support will allow developers and manufacturers to enhance application design while substantially reducing hardware expenditure and minimising logistics and shipping costs.

The software also includes edge acceleration, which improves the accuracy of the touch screen, especially at the border of the LCD.

This enhancement makes it possible to accurately touch the entire surface of the touch sensor, which effectively expands the active area for software designers to insert interactive graphics.

In addition, the new MT 7.12 software driver supports the latest hardware developments such as motherboards incorporating dual-core processor support.

It also has the ability to support Windows 2003 Server, which is typically used to control a large network of terminals.

Furthermore, it has a reduced zipped driver size down to 2.28Mbyte.

This is particularly important for companies using Windows XP Embedded where there can be limited space on the flash drive.

As well as new software enhancements, 3M has also improved the wear resistance of the ClearTek II system.

ClearTek II capacitive touch screens have an additional hard coating to protect them from wear and tear caused by contaminants, abrasion and continuous touches to the same spot on the screen.

This coating has been tested and documented to be at least five times more resistant to wear than competitive capacitive touch screens on the market.

ClearTek II has proved itself to be equal to or more wear resistant than the first generation ClearTek product, which has been tested to withstand over 255 million mechanical touches without degradation.

This is extremely important for ATMs and casino slot machines, for example, where reliable touch performance is required 24 x 7 and reduces the costs associated with maintenance and recalibration.

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