One problem with touch displays is reaching to press an on-screen widget and it suddenly scrolling down or disappearing. The idea here is to add a proximity sensor that freezes the interface, at least the interactive parts and at least near where you are reaching, so that you don't press something else by mistake.
-- ironfroggy, Apr 21 2007

Could you elaborate a little bit more please?
-- BJS, Apr 21 2007


Do you mean Web pages that move whilst they are loading, causing buttons and links to jump around?
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Apr 21 2007


Well, as an example, my original inspiration for the idea was while listening to the radio hosts talk about links to more information on their website. Now, there is a disconnect between them saying that and me finding it. I thought, "Wouldn't it be nice if radios had small touchscreen displays that were fed transcripts of the radio show, and I could click links on their actual words to get more information, pictures, etc." But, as the text would be scrolling when they talk, this can lead to a moving target. The freezing solves this.

It would also do things like prevent other windows from popping up, suspending timeouts that would otherwise remove the widget (like an onscreen keypad that would get replaced by a screensaver), etc.
-- ironfroggy, Apr 24 2007



random, halfbakery