YOU CAN NOW TURN ANY COMPUTER SCREEN TO TOUCH SCREEN WITH THIS DEVICE

YOU CAN NOW TURN ANY COMPUTER SCREEN TO TOUCH SCREEN WITH THIS DEVICE

If you take a look around the laptop section of your local
electronics store today, you’ll see that touchscreens are getting quite popular,
but they’re still not everywhere – they also increase the device costs
a bit. In the past, if you didn’t purchase a laptop with touchscreen
support, you wouldn’t be able to do anything about it in the future.
Today however, things have changed and there’s now an
affordable way to add touchscreen support to your PC or
Chromebook display.
AirBar , created by Neonode, is a small bar that magnetically
attaches to a bottom of a laptop screen, plugs into a USB port, and
then emits an invisible beam of light to track movement and
convert the standard screen into a touchscreen. Unlike traditional
touch screensthough, Airbar works with fingers, brushes, gloves,
and even chopsticks. When you’re done and need to pack
everything up, you just need to unplug the device and slide it off
your laptop.
Tech Behind It
The technology behind Airbar is built on the Neonode zForce Air
system which uses invisible light to sense activity around the
device. When the beams of light are disrupted, the sensors then
relay that information to the connected device as a form of
movement. The zForce (short for Zero Force) system isn’t just for
laptops; it’s designed to be incorporated in general electronics
such as tablets, appliances, toys, and gaming systems.
According to the Neonode technology page, the zForce system is
continuously calibrated in order to work with all types of light. The
calibration also helps to compensate for dust, wear out and other
small particles on the optical surfaces, and variation in component
quality. The technical specs mention the sensors have a resolution
of 200 DPI which provides the precision of writing with a pen.
Though the AirBar device is pretty new, Neonode has been around
for a few years now – The Stockholm based company is publicly
traded and their technologies are used by numerous hardware
companies (automotive, appliance, wearable, office equipment,
etc.) across the globe. As specialists in the optical sensory space,
Neonode also develops sensors for wearables that enable users to
control their smart watches by touching their wrists; similar to
SkinTrack.
AirBar is currently available for pre-order on the company website
for $69, with an estimated ship date for the “first-half of 2016”. The
bar is designed to work with Windows 8 and above, and Chrome
OS devices with 11.6”, 13.3”, 14” and 15.6” screens. At the
moment the device is not compatible with OS X devices.