Planar Touch Products RSPA Certified!

Planar has been named a Certified Retail Technology Provider by RSPA - Retail Solutions Providers Association, the only association dedicated to the retail technology industry. Planar received this certification due to its commitment to excellence and an exceptional level of professionalism. View the complete release on Planar's website. Planar's complete line of touchscreen monitors and computers may be found at PlanarTouch.com.

Planar on AV Technology's Top 10 End-User Products at DSE!

Hot off the presses! Planar made the list twice on AV Technology's Top 10 End-User Products at DSE! The sleek PT2285PW 22-inch multi-touch all glass front surface LCD monitor got a shout out in the number 5 spot! Announced in January 2011 at the NRF tradeshow, the PT2285PW supports gesturing - flicking, pinching and expanding - using Microsoft Windows 7. And it comes standard with 3-year, 2-day advance replacement warranty! Great multi-touch monitor for retail, healthcare or hospitality applications!

Planar's new d82L 82" LCD display came in at number 6. At 3.9 inches deep, it is the thinnest 82-inch LCD on the market today, exceeding the ADA (Americans with Disabilities) compliance standards. It's perfect for large scale digital signage applications. Check out the d82L press release and then visit Planar's website, d82L product page, to see all the benefits of the product.

Planar 22-inch Multi-Touch Featured by KioskMarketplace

It didn't take long to generate buzz about Planar's new PT2285PW 22-inch projected capacitive product released on January 10th! While at NRF, Matt Walsh, Touchscreen Sales Manager, was featured in a KioskMarketplace YouTube clip talking about the benefits of the new multi-touch 22-inch LCD product - like gesturing, flicking or scrolling through files or pictures and resizing images. Matt also talked about how the PT2285PW has a zero bezel, all-glass front surface making it easy to clean. Check out the touchscreen in the KioskMarketplace NRF wrap-up. Then visit PlanarTouch.com to read about the PT2285PW multi-touch and find out how to buy!

Multi-Touch All Glass Monitor from Planar

Interested in an all-glass front surface wide multi-touch monitor that supports gesturing? Think of all the things you can do on your digital phone - only now on a bigger surface! The new 22-inch wide projected capacitive PT2285PW monitor from Planar is perfect for flicking through files, resizing images, or browsing for a jacket in a size that is available at another store or warehouse. With its sleek, beautiful design, it'll fit into the most upscale store, hotel or clinic. 15, 17 and 19-inch sizes available soon! Another great thing about the PT2285PW is that the user doesn't need to load drivers. Plug into your computer and start using right away! Refer to the press release for more information.

As with all Planar's touch products, the PT2285PW is available with the industry-leading 3-year, 2-day advance replacement warranty.

Planar at NRF 2011

Jan 10-11th, 2011 Planar will be attending Retail's BIG show. NRF's 100th Annual Convention attracts more than 17,500 retail professionals from 62 countries! Planar will be exhibiting a variety of products, including the PA1575R 15-inch resistive touch all-in-one computer designed for point-of-sale (POS) applications, the 15-inch PT1545R resistive touchscreen LCD with an economical price point, the 19-inch PT1975S monitor integrated with a rugged SAW touchscreen; and a 12-inch POS touchscreen monitor perfect for retail applications.

Come check out our new product offerings at NRF Jan 10-11th, 2011 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, New York, NY, Booth 2750.

To set up an appointment please e-mail touchscreens@planar.com

The Future of Touchscreens

There's no limit to what touchscreens can do! Everything from self-service check-in kiosks at Walgreens, to do it yourself stations at the post office, there are many applications that take advantage of the easy to use touchscreen. All you have to do is touch the display to quickly finish the transation. But I watched a video today that shows where else touchscreens can be used. The most unique was face recognition on the sink faucet, enabling the stream to be automatically adjusted based on user preference! I also liked the retail check-out stations which gives a suggested upsell item (or two!). And for those of you who grew up in the 80's the touchscreen Rubics cube is interesting, although I think I would get just as frustrated with this one as the mechanical game.

Check out the video below! Then check out Planar's selection of 15, 17, 19 and 22" wide resistive, SAW capacitive and multi-touch touchscreen LCDs at planartouch.com.

Planar Touchscreens for Windows 7

Microsoft Windows 7 is the rage these days. It was specifically designed to support touchscreen features such as flicking to advance the page and go back, resizing windows, tap and drag, right click, back, forward, zoom and rotate. There's also a native on-screen keyboard embedded into the operating system. Windows 7 also supports multi-touch, but you must have hardware, such as Planar's PX2230MW, to support it. Cnet has done a great video - only 3 minutes - that go into these features in more detail.

For a complete list of Planar product which support Windows 7 visit PlanarTouch.com FAQ. Or visit PlanarTouch.com product page for more general product descriptions.

Touchscreen LCDs - Support After the Sale

There are many different touchscreen LCD monitors out there - resistive, capacitive, SAW. How do you choose the right one for your application? Check out Planar's website which talks about the differences between the technologies.

So you've chosen the technology that fits your environment. What happens if that monitor fails after installation? The majority of the touchscreen suppliers only offers a three-year warranty. And if it fails you have to ship it back to their repair facility on your dime, wait at least a week or two for them to diagnose the issue, fix your monitor and ship it back. All that time you're without your touchscreen, and the system it's tied to - whether it be your POS system, point-of-information kiosk, or the interface to your machine or dispensing kiosk.

Before you buy, check out Planar's complete line of touchscreen monitors available in 15 to 22 inch sizes and resistive, capacitive and SAW touch technologies. And unlike our competition, we offer a Customer First, 3-year, 48-hour advance replacement warranty. What does this mean? If your touchscreen goes down and Planar can't diagnose the issue through the 24x7 Call Center or online chat, Planar ships you a replacement in 2 days with a return shipping label. You take out the replacement and get your system up and running. Then you put the defective unit in the box, stick on the return shipping label, and send the unit back to Planar - all on Planar's dime. It's that easy! We also offer 4 and 5-year extended warranties for additional cost. Same 48-hour advance replacement. Have more questions? Just email touchscreens@planar.com.

SMART Technologies Acquires NextWindow

On April 25th, SMART Technologies, leading provider of interactive white boards, announced the acquisition of NextWindow, a leading designer and manufacturer of optical touch techology. SMART Technologies currently focuses on the education, business and government sectors. With this acquisition, SMART Technologies gets access to the consumer market as NextWindow manufactures sensors and overlays from 15 to 120 inches. Both companies have extensive patent portfolios for optical touch technology.

I personally wonder if this combination of forces is a way to counteract the Asian optical touchscreen manufacturers popping up in Taiwan and China. Multiple companies have introduced multi-touch LCDs for the consumer market in the past year, capitalizing on the success of Apple's iPhone and iPad: Planar's PX2230MW, HP's L2105tm, Dell's SX2210, and Acer's T230H. None of them mention who the optical touchscreen manufacturer is. It'll be interesting to watch SMART Technologies' next steps.

Have you got your Apple iPad yet?

Good news. The new iPad is selling far better than Apple expected. Bad news. Their component suppliers appear to be having troubles keeping up with the demand. According to NYDailyNews.com, suppliers are having difficulties producing enough of the 9.7-inch panels and touchscreen sensors to keep up with demand. In response Apple is delaying the global launch by a month.

Planar's new PX2230MW 22-inch multi-touch LCD designed for consumer applications supports many of the same features as the iPhone and iPad. Whether you’re managing music or video files, resizing or editing photos, flicking through pictures or dragging and dropping files into different folders, the PX2230MW has you covered. And the 3-year, 48-hour replacement warranty can't be beat!

Touchscreen kiosk for University of Minnesota

When was the last time you went into a building looking for a doctor's office, or a strip mall looking for a store and couldn't find what you were looking for? A group of students designed a building directory informational kiosk for the University of Minnesota, enabling users to find restrooms, vending machines or meeting rooms on the various floors using the directory. It appears the touchscreen LCD in the video is similar to Planar's 22" wide PT2275SW SAW Touchscreen LCD. If you're in the market for a touchscreen, check out Planar's interactive guide on choosing the right touchscreen for your application.

Sharp develops 3D touchscreen LCD

Imagine a 3D touchscreen display on your cell phone! Sharp recently announced a high bright LCD display targeted at the mobile phone, smart phone, digital gaming and digital camera markets. It's 3.4 inches in size with a resolution of 480 x754 and contrast ratio of 1000:1. The display may be used in both horizontal and vertical positions and can show both 2D and 3D digital content. Avatar right on your phone!

Planar's 22" multi-touch PX2230MW is a tad bit bigger and shows only 2D content, but people may still use gesturing and flicks to flip through pictures or other files.

Driverless Touchscreen LCDs

Planar just published an ebook - Going Driverless: How HID Compliant Touchscreen LCDs can help when depoying large scale POS and POI installations. Some people don't realize how long it can take to load a driver onto their computer to run a touchscreen LCD; imagine doing it for 50 or more units! So what if you didn't have to load a driver just for basic touchscreen operation? Think how fast the installation would go! Check out the entire ebook at PlanarTouch.com and also the HID Compliant resistive and capacitive products in the Planar portfolio.

Turn your skin into a touchscreen!

This goes beyond Minority Report! Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Microsoft's Redmond research lab are investigating how to turn your body into both a touchscreen "display" and input device using an arm band with a pico projector embedded inside. Blogger Barb Dybwad asks if people are interested in turning their bodies into touchscreens. I think it'd be interesting for demonstration purposes, but I wouldn't be interested in everyday living. What do you think?

Optical Touchscreen Investment News

Yet another sign that the touchscreen market is rapidly growing. FlatFrog Laboratories based in Sweden and UK announced they raised the equivalent of $18M US in new equity to develop and productize their cost-effective large multi-touch in-glass displays, mainly targeted at the education, gaming, hospitality and digital signage markets.

This on the heals of the Tyco Electronics acquisition of French touch input technology company Sensitive Object for $62M announced late January, 2010. It'll be interesting to see what Tyco does with the technology - if Tyco plans to go after the small touchscreen markets like Apple iTablet/iPad or GPS markets.

Select Your Touchscreen Guide

Planar has created an interactive tool to choose the right touchscreen display for a specific application or market. There's a short version - about 14 questions and a longer version (still pretty short - 18 questions). What's even better is you can have someone contact you and guide you on how to get a demo or purchase. Check out the touchscreen guide or click on the link at planartouch.com.

Planar Touchscreen Used in Pizza Restaurant

Extreme Pizza, located in Beaverton, Oregon chose Planar's PT1550MX resistive touchscreen LCD with integrated cardswipe (MSR) for their POS system. Owner Al Woodward said they've even dumped drinks on the screen with no problems. See the whole video below.

Multiple Touchscreens In Action!

Interesting consumer application for touchscreens - displaying trippy graphics tied to music on multiple touchscreens, being controlled by one person. I can't tell if these are all-in-one touchscreen computers, similar to Planar's new PA1575R, or if there's one PC supporting multiple larger sized touchscreens (like Planar's new PT2275SW 22" SAW touchscreen). But what a way to show what touchscreens can do! Love the music!

Save The Date!

Jan 10-12th, 2010 Planar will be attending Retail's BIG show. NRF's 99th Annual Convention attracts more than 17,500 retail professionals from 62 countries! Planar has also expanded their successful PT family of touchscreens by adding the all new 15" PA1575R all-in-one touchcomputer, which is ideal for retail applications.

Come check out our new product offerings at NRF Jan 10-12th, 2010 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, New York, NY, Booth 247.

To set up an appointment please e-mail touchscreens@planar.com

Touchscreens and Windows 7 - What You Need to Know

When I read about some of the cool features developed for touchscreens in Windows 7 I got really excited! Being able to just flick my finger across the screen to scroll through pictures instead of using the arrow button seemed pretty neat (even though I've gotten lost using my husband's i-phone like when I've expanded the screen to read the text and couldn't figure out how to get it back to the small text for easier scrolling!)

I found Jay's post on Planar Embedded talking about the advantages and current limitations to using existing touchscreens with Windows 7. Check it out for yourself - Planar Embedded: The Engineer View: Windows 7, Gestures, Embedded Touch screens, and You