Gunze Touchscreen Panel Knows Who's Touching It

Gunze Ltd has recently debuted a prototype touchscreen panel that can differentiate between who is actually touching it. This is something that current multi-touch screens are incapable of discerning and although you may not necessarily see the need on small personal mobile devices, Gunze's tech is meant for tabletop muliplayer arcade games—imagine digital board games.

The Gunze prototype had a capacitive touchscreen embedded in a tabletop with four electrodes located around the touch panel. In order for the touchscreen to differentiate between the players around the table, each player would have to have one hand hold the electrode while the other hand touched the screen.

Touching the electrode and then the touchscreen panel forms a closed circuit via the human body. The prototype so far also allows users to to operate the table by sitting on conductive chairs instead of having to touch an electrode with the other hand.

The Gunze touchscreen panel was introduced at the 11th International Nanotechnology Exhibition & Conference 2012 in Tokyo this month, but a timeframe for commercialization isn't set yet. The company hopes to market the technology for multiplayer game machines.

[via Tech On]