Humanity has declared war towards physical buttons, switches and knobs as most electronic devices we use now come with surfaces you can touch in order to use certain features.
Such technology lies now in almost every gadget you come in contact with daily - smartphones, tablets, drawing tablets, laptops, iPods, TV remotes, some types of cameras and even your vehicle’s infotainment system. There are three types of technologies (resistive, capacitive, infrared) behind these touchable devices and the most used one today is the capacitive version.
In capacitive touch surfaces, electric current is broadcasted from all corners towards the middle and when you touch an area, your finger(s) will change the current there (yes, you are actually electrocuting yourself each time you touch that). This allows for an instant triangulation done by the software and the rest of the hardware to pinpoint that location and calculate the exact coordinates on that surface.
Unlike the older resistive technology (where you had to push and bend the first layer of the display/surface to change the electric field lying beneath), the capacitive offers you the possibility of using more than one finger to create more complex commands, like two- or three-finger swiping, pinching, two-finger rotating and more. These motions further enhance the user’s experience with touch-technology devices, enabling for a an easier and intuitive way of operating them.
And since swiping your fingers across your gadgets is now a natural way of control, why not benefiting from this in your vehicle too? Of course, there are many vehicles today equipped with touchscreen infotainment systems, but they are pretty limited regarding multiple-finger operations and some might be too far from the driver, forcing him to take his eyes off the road and stretch an arm to the screen for some operations.
Then come vehicles that use an alternative combination of both touch and analogue ways of controls, using additional buttons or rotating knobs. And speaking about rotating knobs, they also come now with a touch sensitive top on which you can draw letters and perform swiping. But then, why combining two types of controls when you are already mastering your laptop’s touch pad?
Well, Lexus decided to take one step further in the automotive industry and get rid of unwanted knobs, buttons and even their mouse-like previous controller. It’s called the Lexus Remote Touch Interface (RTI) and it’s promising to function like any other touch-sensitive gadget you own.
Not much has been said about the new touch interface for now, so until we get our hands on the new Lexus RC on which this gear will debut, all we have is the video bellow to show how it will work.
The RTI will conveniently be placed on the lower central console right at your fingertips. You can see that the surface accepts at least normal tapping, swiping and pinching. This will hopefully make using the car’s infotainment system as easy as you navigate your way through Myface or Twittook.
All we hope now is that the infotainment system in the RC will be more responsive than the one used in other Lexus models. They all seem kinda laggy to input and also have some weird looking old graphics.
Then come vehicles that use an alternative combination of both touch and analogue ways of controls, using additional buttons or rotating knobs. And speaking about rotating knobs, they also come now with a touch sensitive top on which you can draw letters and perform swiping. But then, why combining two types of controls when you are already mastering your laptop’s touch pad?
The RTI will conveniently be placed on the lower central console right at your fingertips. You can see that the surface accepts at least normal tapping, swiping and pinching. This will hopefully make using the car’s infotainment system as easy as you navigate your way through Myface or Twittook.
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