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Elo TouchSystems, the global leader in touch technology and a division of Tyco Electronics Corporation, has developed acoustic pulse recognition (APR), a completely new and unique way of sensing touches on a display. Consisting of only a glass overlay mounted in front of the display, together with a small electronic controller board, Elo's APR technology provides a new set of benefits that have been only partially achieved before by other touch technologies.

The new breakthrough APR touch technology was formally announced on June 7, 2006, at the Society for Information Display (SID) International Symposium, Seminar and Exhibition at the Moscone Center, San Francisco, California. The 1529L touchmonitors will be available for purchase in September 2006, with APR included as an additional touch technology choice. Elo will initially direct its APR touch technology toward the retail and restaurant POS markets.

Seamless Synergy of the Best in Touch
"Elo invented touch technology 35 years ago," says Elo president Mark Mendenhall, "and we've consistently continued innovating ever since. The new APR touch technology is one in a long line of products developed by Elo to meet the changing needs and demands of our customers. It provides the seamless synergy of the best in touch.

"APR combines the ultimate in optical quality, durability and stability of surface wave and infrared, with the excellent dragging properties of capacitive," explains Mendenhall. "Plus, it has the advantages of resistive technology—stylus, gloved hand and fingernail activation, and low cost. APR works with water and other contaminants on the screen, is not affected by surrounding metal or poor grounding, can be scaled from PDA size to 42" displays, and provides palm rejection during signature capture."

We Hear You
According to Elo product manager David Chen, the new APR operates by listening for a touch. "Simply stated," says Chen, "a touch at each position on the glass generates a unique sound. Four tiny transducers attached to the edges of the touchscreen glass pick up the sound of the touch. The sound is then digitized by the controller and compared to a list of prerecorded sounds for every position on the glass. The cursor position is instantly updated to the touch location."

Chen explains that APR differs from previous attempts to recognize the position of touch with microphones because it uses a simple table lookup method instead of requiring powerful and expensive signal processing hardware to attempt to calculate the touch location without any references. "Therefore," Chen confirms, "Elo's APR touch technology is more cost-effective and not economically limited to very large displays. And most important, it also comes from the leader in acoustic touch technologies for the last 20 years, Elo TouchSystems."

APR: The Beginning of a Revolution in Touch
"To create APR," says Steven Abramovich, Elo's vice president of sales and marketing, "we placed all of the popular touch technologies—capacitive, infrared, resistive and surface wave—on the drawing board. Then we integrated the best features of each seamlessly into fully sealed, attractive POS monitors that herald just the beginning for this revolution in touch."

Abramovich sees APR technology as another example of his company's drive to remain customer-centric. "We've always put the needs of the customer first," he states, "and we can attribute our success to responding to those needs. We created IntelliTouch surface wave twenty years ago because of customer demand for a new technology, and we developed APR for the very same reasons. Customers are looking for an economical solution that incorporates the best of everything. We provide that with APR. It has the narrowest borders of any overlay touch technology—a mere five millimeters, including the sealing area. This makes it easy for multiple LCD displays to be placed side by side."

Abramovich continues, "In addition, APR has a fixed coordinate system that is never subject to changes in time, position or environment. This means that traditional touchscreen calibration can be eliminated from the customer's application if the display size and position are fixed."

Elo TouchSystems, global leader in touch technology, is a division of Tyco Electronics Corporation. Elo develops, manufactures and markets a complete line of touch products that simplify the interface between people and computers in both public-access and employee-activated applications. Founded in 1971, the company is headquartered in Menlo Park, California, with manufacturing sites in the United States, Belgium, Brazil, China, and Japan. (Elo operates in Japan under the name of Touch Panel Systems.) For more information on Elo's products and services, please contact Elo TouchSystems at 800-ELO-TOUCH (800-356-8682), visit Elo's website at www.elotouch.com or direct electronic mail inquiries to eloinfo@elotouch.com.