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Tyco Electronics Ltd. has released two new high-res touchscreen monitors, both which feature a 100 per cent usable surface area.

The Elo TouchSystems 1900L and 2200L LCD touch monitor features a zero-bezel design, which removes the frame found on traditional computer screens. The company said the seamless glass surface will help enhance the high-definition experience for its users.

“One of our principal goals was to make our new touchscreens look less like computer monitors and more like a design element in the customer environment,” James Witkowski, product manager on the Elo TouchSystems monitor, said.

The monitors are geared toward use in high-traffic retail, hospitality and other public environments. Integrated VGA and DVI video-input ports, touch-interface USB, AC-DC power and audio headphone jacks are mounted on the bottom of the monitor and are invisible to the user.

From: HowStuffWorks.com

Touch-screen monitors have become more and more commonplace as their price has steadily dropped over the past decade. There are three basic systems that are used to recognize a person’s touch:

• Resistive
• Capacitive
• Surface acoustic wave

The resistive system consists of a normal glass panel that is covered with a conductive and a resistive metallic layer. These two layers are held apart by spacers, and a scratch-resistant layer is placed on top of the whole setup. An electrical current runs through the two layers while the monitor is operational. When a user touches the screen, the two layers make contact in that exact spot. The change in the electrical field is noted and the coordinates of the point of contact are calculated by the computer. Once the coordinates are known, a special driver translates the touch into something that the operating system can understand, much as a computer mouse driver translates a mouse’s movements into a click or a drag.

In the capacitive system, a layer that stores electrical charge is placed on the glass panel of the monitor. When a user touches the monitor with his or her finger, some of the charge is transferred to the user, so the charge on the capacitive layer decreases. This decrease is measured in circuits located at each corner of the monitor. The computer calculates, from the relative differences in charge at each corner, exactly where the touch event took place and then relays that information to the touch-screen driver software. One advantage that the capacitive system has over the resistive system is that it transmits almost 90 percent of the light from the monitor, whereas the resistive system only transmits about 75 percent. This gives the capacitive system a much clearer picture than the resistive system.

On the monitor of a surface acoustic wave system, two transducers (one receiving and one sending) are placed along the x and y axes of the monitor’s glass plate. Also placed on the glass are reflectors — they reflect an electrical signal sent from one transducer to the other. The receiving transducer is able to tell if the wave has been disturbed by a touch event at any instant, and can locate it accordingly. The wave setup has no metallic layers on the screen, allowing for 100-percent light throughput and perfect image clarity. This makes the surface acoustic wave system best for displaying detailed graphics (both other systems have significant degradation in clarity).

Another area in which the systems differ is in which stimuli will register as a touch event. A resistive system registers a touch as long as the two layers make contact, which means that it doesn’t matter if you touch it with your finger or a rubber ball. A capacitive system, on the other hand, must have a conductive input, usually your finger, in order to register a touch. The surface acoustic wave system works much like the resistive system, allowing a touch with almost any object — except hard and small objects like a pen tip.

As far as price, the resistive system is the cheapest; its clarity is the lowest of the three, and its layers can be damaged by sharp objects. The surface acoustic wave setup is usually the most expensive.

BREAKTHROUGHS often beget other breakthroughs, and Apple’s slick use of touch technology on its iPhone has set touch-screen makers to salivating. An industry once relegated to niches now sees the potential for riches.

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By Julie Ritzer Ross

Vertical Systems Reseller Magazine

VARs looking to hit the ground running within the hospitality vertical – and reap the benefit of increased profits – would be well-served to use touch-screen sales as ammunition. The category is experiencing many new innovations on the technology front, and new applications for both restaurants and hotels are also on the horizon.

 ”The touch-screen market is exploding,” states Bryan Griffin, vice president of operations at Advanced Business Products, an Orlando, Fla.-based VAR. Griffin says more and more of his company’s customers, even small restaurant operators that traditionally have gravitated toward “standard $800 cash registers,” are expressing interest in migrating to a touch-screen platform.

The VAR attributes this trend to several factors, most significantly lower hardware prices and increased ease of use. “A two-terminal system that once cost $10,000 to $12,000 can now be purchased for less than $10,000, including a few remote printers; a terminal that previously had a price of $5,000 is currently about $3,499,” Griffin observes. “At the same time, the software is more menu-driven and simpler to maintain. Just as important, it requires less cross-training of employees. Someone who comes from a national restaurant chain to work at an independent restaurant can be up and running on a program within minutes, versus hours or more in the past.”

A Steady Pulse
Among the most recent developments in touch screens and touch-screen operation is the introduction of proprietary acoustic pulse recognition (APR) technology by Elo TouchSystems, a unit of Tyco Electronics. APR assembly comprises a glass display overlay or other rigid substrate, with four piezoelectric transducers mounted on two diagonally opposite corners of the back surface, out of the visible area and connected via a flexible cable to a controller card. Impact that occurs when the screen is touched, or friction caused when a user drags a finger or stylus across the glass, creates an acoustic wave. These signals are amplified in the controller card and converted into a digital stream of data. The touch location is determined by comparing the data to a stored sound profile, and the cursor position is instantly updated to that location. Ambient and extraneous sounds that do not match this profile are rejected.

 ”The advantage of APR is that it combines the best of other touch-screen technologies,” asserts John Dittig, Elo TouchSystems’ national sales manager for North America. This includes the high optical quality, durability and stability of surface acoustic wave (SAW) and infrared technologies; the ability to accommodate finger-dragging found in capacitive technology and the stylus, glove and fingernail activation and low cost of resistive technology. APR is resistant to water and other contaminants on the screen and can be scaled from PDA to 42-inch displays.

APR also utilizes a simple table lookup method, rather than powerful, expensive signal processing hardware, to calculate touch location without any references, and no re-calibration is necessary. Consequently, Dittig notes, the technology is not economically limited to large displays, and VARs can offer their customers the value-added option of migrating to it at the same price they would pay for touch screens that utilize resistive technology. Elo TouchSystems makes APR available in all-in-one and desktop displays, as well as in panel-mounted touch screens for kiosk applications.

Despite its advantages, APR has yet to garner widespread acceptance.  However, the tides are rapidly starting to turn as more potential end users begin to understand its nuances, notes Joe Bushey, president and CEO of POS World, an Atlanta-based VAR.            

“We’re starting to recommend it for most applications, due to its versatility and the high degree of brightness and clarity,” Bushey says. He believes a portion of APR implementation has been hindered by the fact that the technology works only with Windows XP and USB drivers. Once other drivers are released, a surge of growth is likely to occur, Bushey predicts.

Like Bushey, Jeff Yelton, who is president of ScanSource North America’s POS and Barcoding unit, sees APR technology implementation on the upswing, but also counsels VARs to ensure that restaurant operators, hoteliers and other end users have adequate training programs in place before installation is under way. “It’s easy to see the advantage of APR, but employees who have memorized the sequences of older touch screens will need to be conditioned to the way the technology works” based on sound profiles, he explains.

Catching the Wave
Also making news within the touch-screen category is the advent of a wider range of models in different sizes to suit the needs of specific verticals, as well as to meld with varying activation preferences. This product selection includes SAW touch screens, which can be activated only with a finger, feature glass overlays and work via the conversion of electrical signals into surface waves, and resistive touch screens, which have thin mylar rather than glass overlays and may be activated using a finger or any object.

For example, Planar Systems, recently expanded its PT line – the company’s PT LCD touch-screen display units now include three SAW models – the 15-inch PT1505MU, the 17-inch PT1705MU and 19-inch PT1915MU. The company’s 19-inch PT1910MX rounds out its current suite of resistive touch monitors. Planar has also started to offer a card swipe reader as an accessory to all PT displays or as an integrated feature with the 15-inch PT1550MX and PT155MU, available as resistive or SAW products, respectively.

Matt Walsh, Planar’s sales manager, North America for touch monitors and thin-client network displays, says these offerings also incorporate specific enhancements designed to improve end user interface, such as the ability to adjust the monitor position from -5 degrees to 90 degrees (to accommodate user preferences), a rugged desk-stand to minimize accidental tipping, placement of the on-screen display buttons on the side, and an on-screen display locking mechanism to prevent unauthorized setting changes.

Walsh predicts the 15-inch models with integrated magnetic stripe readers will comprise the “sweet spot” of many hospitality applications. “Space constraints are a big concern among (players) in this vertical, and both the smaller size and the integrated peripheral” play into it, he states.

Pioneer POS is also focusing on flexible touch-screen options. Among  the company’s newest introductions are the StealthTouch-M5 15-inch all-in-one touch computer and also the TOM-M5 15-inch touch monitor, both of which are recommended for hospitality applications. The StealthTouch-M5 can run in thin-client mode, utilizing solid-state disk or compact flash with embedded Windows. It can also be configured to run Windows XP or Vista. The unit supports resistive, SAW and infrared touch-screen technologies. Additional features include Wi-Fi wireless network, credit card reader, biometric fingerprint reader and an integrated customer display.

Similarly, the TOM-M5 has an integrated magnetic stripe reader, biometric reader and customer display, as well as a built-in USB hub that yields four additional USB ports for connections to keyboards, barcode scanners and printers. Mountable on a wall or VESA pole, and available as an all-in-one touch monitor, it, too, supports resistive, SAW as well as infrared touch-screen
technologies.

 ”We have seen a lot of interest in infrared because anything will activate it, the cost sits between resistive and SAW,” says Michael Flores, director of business development for Pioneer POS. “Additionally, with SAW, there can be a problem of a finger shorting out the signal. This is not an issue with infrared.”

Still, other vendors are working to develop resistive touch-screen panels that do not scratch as easily as their earlier counterparts, are sealable and stand up to tough input conditions – including heavy usage at the point of sale. Fujitsu Components America currently utilizes a flexible, transparent touch conductor to provide a more durable, yet cost-efficient touch surface, according to Bruce DeVisser, the company’s product marketing manager, input devices. This has been made possible by the release of an organic, conductive polymer film DeVisser deems sufficiently flexible and durable to extend touch panel life by five times. “The manufacturing process is also improved: Instead of being sputtered on, a very thin layer of liquid polymer solution, combined with a water-based solvent, is roll-coated onto the touch panel’s polyethylene terephthalate (PET) film.”

Self-Serve Information
Although touch screens continue as a major component of POS systems implemented in the hospitality vertical and are also being used for self-ordering and nutrition information dissemination in quick-service restaurants, the roster of applications for the hardware in this segment has begun to expand even further. “Self-service touch-screen kiosk applications are a good example,” says Alan Sweet, general manager of Lynbrook, N.Y.-based distributor Metropolitan Sales. He says smaller hotels are starting to seriously consider emulating their larger counterparts in installing touch-screen kiosks for guest check-in and check-out.

“They know consumers are coming to expect it, given the way it has taken off in the airline industry,” Sweet observes.

Sweet predicts that in the near future, restaurants will want to implement tabletop touch-screen ordering systems consumers can use to transmit their own orders to the kitchen. Besides time and labor savings, the appeal here will be the possibility of garnering new revenue streams from co-op advertising agreements with local businesses that may be willing to showcase their products and services on touch-screens when they are not in use.

Similarly, Fujitsu’s DeVisser notes, some developers are working on applications that meld touch-screen technology with handheld devices used to alert restaurant patrons when their tables are ready. With the technology in place, customers will be able to browse through menus, learn about specials and possibly view co-op advertising.

Penn Center Systems West, a provider of integrated solutions headquartered in Mechanicsburg, Penn., is experiencing success with a touch-screen application that lets bar patrons obtain information about 60 on-tap beers before ordering them, notes Mark Dodson, the company’s sales manager. Another touch-screen application that gives kitchen staff menu-driven access to recipes and images of how individual items should be arranged on plates is equally popular. Both applications are built with POSitouch technology.

There’s also been an increase in the use of touch-enabled digital signage and large format directional screens for restaurant employees, specifically as it relates to human resources applications. “Restaurant employees will be able to access (via touch screen) their own information and make scheduling requests via touch screen,” says Bushey of POS World. “Touchscreens are a great category for the channel, and we’re only at the beginning of the application development spectrum.” 

Fanless point of sale terminals are making a dent in the traditional terminal marketplace.  The idea of not having a fan inside the terminal sucking in greasy, dirty air has a lot of restaurant owners realizing a longer lifespan for their terminals.

The idea is a good one.  Since restaurants are notorious for having grease floating in the air it only stands to reason that a computer with a fan bringing in cooler air to cool down the computer would also bring in this dirty air.  The grease settles onto the computer boards, coating them with grease.  Dust and dirt are also brought into the computer and also settle onto the boards.  It doesn’t take long before this cycle of grease and dirt creates a coating across the entire insides of the computer.  This blanket of grease and dirt raises the temperature of the computer chips and either burns them out or shortens their lifespan.

Fanless terminals eliminate the circulating of dirty air and should lengthen the life of the computer or at least reduce the problems with the unit.  It is a little early to see if the results are what is expected.

What we do know for now is that there is less buildup inside the units.  The real test will come in the 2nd and 3rd year after installation.

MyPOS
www.MyPosPrinter.com
www.MyPosTerminal.com

Fanless point of sale terminals are gaining a lot of traction and becoming more and more popular. Several name brand manufacturers of all-in-one point of sale terminals are scrambling to come out with their own version of this popular technology.

The reason for this popularity stems from the harsh environment that these terminals are asked to work. Restaurants in general and kitchen in particular are notorious for grease and steam being in the air. Traditional point of sale terminals and computers have fans that either pull air into the computer or push air out (which draws air in from another point on the computer). This movement of air is necessary to keep the temperature inside the computer within limits. Some computer chips are so hot that a fan is placed directly over the chip to keep it cool.

When temperatures get too high this shortens the life of the computer. If one of these fans quits working the life expectancy of the computer could be a matter of minutes, if not shorter.

For restaurants fans in computers and touch screens has always posed an additional challenge. The fans were necessary to keep temperatures in the computers down. However, these same fans pulled in grease and steam from the kitchen, which then settled onto the boards and chips inside the computer. This then coated the entire inside of the computer with a layer of grease that then acted like a magnet for the dust in the air. With this combination of grease and dust it does not take long before a blanket is covering the inside of the computer, causing the chips to overheat and the computer to fail.

Moving parts of any machine are the most common point of failure for that device. Fans are one of the only moving parts left on a computer. Removing this potential point of failure has been a goal of computer designers for years.

TekVisions has introduced the Tek-365 Touch Screen Computer. This fanless terminal is priced aggressively and has the power needed to run today’s point of sale software. The terminal has 512MB of RAM and a 40GB Hard drive that is combined with the WEPOS operating system.

Posiflex recently introduced their fanless terminal the Posiflex KS6315. This terminal has up to 1GB of RAM and a 40GB Hard drive.

The Posiflex KS6315 has a wide variety of operating systems with some units configured for no operating system, which give you the option of loading the operating system yourself.

The Posiflex KS6315 also has customized peripherals that tightly integrate with the unit such as a rear display and a magnetic card reader. The Posiflex KS6315 also has a fingerprint reader for even tighter security of your system.

Fanless terminals may look on paper to be slower than other computers. But what you don’t see is the longer life a fanless terminal offers. In restaurant applications, the advantage you gain in life may far outweigh the slight sacrifice in processor speed. With the additional RAM offered in these terminals and the reduced requirement for operating speed of most point of sale software applications you and your staff may never know that you are using a fanless terminal, except that it should not break as often.

Adminstrator

www.myposterminal.com

www.myposprinter.com

We get this questin a lot. More than you might expect. Here are some thoughts to help you decide.

All-in-one touch computers come in 15″ touch screen and 17″ touch screen versions. You will find manufacturers such as; Elo Touch and Posiflex.

Asthetics

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that does include computers. Some people, especially those who put touch screen termnals where their customer can see them like to have the all-in-one terminals. They are willing to spend the extra money to have a better looking terminal on the counter. The sleek designs of the all-in-one terminals lend themselves to the owner who wants to present a fancier look to their customers.

On the other hand, with a little creative thinking the 2-piece touch screen can be made to look even better. By placing just the touch screen and the printer above the counter and the computer and cash drawer below the counter the customer is given an even cleaner look.

Either way, wires are going to be dealt with through a small hole in the counter. If given prior thought you can even have the hole drilled so that the terminal or touch screen sits on top of the hole, providing an even better look to the customer.

Performance

Zero difference. None. Nada. Zip. Either choice performs great and with equal speed.

Both types of hardware come in a wide variety of processors and RAM. Since your choices are so varied you should not have a problem with performance.

Maintenance

Here you might find a difference. If you have a hardware failure on any part of the all-in-one the entire terminal is down for repair. Pack up the entire unit and send it off.

The 2-piece unit gives you some options. Only send in for repair the portion of the unit that actually needs repair. If the touch screen is down, simply send in the touch screen for repair and put your back up touch screen in its place. If the computer is down pack it up for repair and put a temporary unit in its place. Since you should have installed the computer under the counter no one will notice that it is a temporary unit.

Investment

Generally, the all-in-one units cost $200 – $600 more than a comparible 2-peice unit. Of course, there are always exceptions but you generally do save with a 2-peice unit.

15″ Touch Screens start under $500 and go up from there. You then attach a low-priced PC and a thermal printer for under $250. You now have a complete terminal for just over $1,000.

Administrator

www.myposterminal.com