Touch Revolution Adds Touch to Appliances

Touch Revolution will be using the Consumer Electronics Show as an opportunity to showcase several next-generation product concepts. These will revolve around the newly released NIM1000 Module, which aims to allow the implementation of touch input capabilities into any electronic device, from the most basic home appliance to the most sophisticated devices. Among the product concepts that the company will showcase as making use of the module are a washing machine and a dryer, a microwave oven, an all-in-one printer and a reference design for an enterprise smartphone,

“Our goal is to make it easy for manufacturers to offer iPhone-like touch interfaces while taking advantage of the NIM1000 module’s network and application processing capabilities,” Touch Revolution CEO Mark Hamblin, who previously served as the design lead for the original iPhone touch screen at Apple, said. “Our experts in touch-screen technologies, hardware engineering, software development and user interface design spent more than a year developing and testing the ‘drop-in’ NIM1000 module to assure its suitability for high volume manufacturing. That means manufacturers can greatly accelerate the development of these next-generation products while eliminating most of the costs – and risk.”

The NIM1000 uses a state-of-the-art capacitive touch-screen that can be implemented into any kind of electronic device. Not only that, but its use of the Android open source application framework implies that manufacturers will have no restrictions when installing additional services into any of their products. The aforementioned NIM1000-enabled printer, for instance, will be able to use touch-screen inputs to access the Internet and print both local and web content (maps, tickets, etc.). The printer will even be allowed to have its own e-mail address, for those cases when someone wishes an e-mailed document to be immediately available for printing.

The washing machine will employ a simple slider touch-screen to program wash and dry cycles and even access online stain-removal guides. Even the microwave will not just defrost or make popcorn, but, by running the Android, it will integrate multiple other features not normally associated with such an appliance. Among these additions to the normal functionality are timers for each burner in the oven, Internet radio, widgets for news and weather and even digital-picture frames.

Finally, the desk-top smartphone will integrate all the features of today's top devices, with appointments and conference calls popping up and requiring a single click/tap to dial.

Touch Revolution will be showcasing its products during CES at Booth #13744. The NIM1000 is already available for purchase by OEMs interested in integrating this technology into their products.