Microsoft Research’s Applied Science Group has unveiled a high-speed touch recognition test device that reduces input latency to only 1ms, which the company claims makes on-screen virtual objects feel real.
In a video posted by the Microsoft Research Applied Science Group, Assistant Director Paul Dietz discusses advances in high-performance touch systems being worked on at the company that could actually change the way users perceive what is happening on a digital device.
The main subject of the video is touch response latency. The video states that many current devices have about 100ms of touch input latency. That means, if you touch a screen and move your finger at a speed of approximately 1 meter per second, the on-screen image–whether it be an object bring dragged or line being drawn–will trail your finger by about 10cm. That’s a huge gap.
“This analogy that you’re trying to draw, of moving a real physical object, really breaks down because the object is following so far behind”, Dietz says in the video. With that in mind, the Microsoft Research Applied Science Group built a test system in order to understand how much better the experience would be if that latency was decreased. And ultimately, they were able to improve response times by two orders of magnitude.
Microsoft Research Applied Science Group, Assistant Director Paul Dietz
With touch input latencies reduced down to about the 1ms level, Dietz says, “It’s almost like finger-painting. It feels like the ink is coming from the tip of your finger. And it’s perceptually very, very different.” Anyone that has used a variety of touch-enabled devices is likely to agree. Moving from a higher-latency to a lower-latency device simply feels better, provided the interface itself is geared towards touch.
Dietz continues, “What we’ve done with this research is set something of a bar for where we’d like to head over the next decade. So, we’d like to see systems decrease their latency down to the 1ms level and then you start to actually have things that feel like you’re moving a real physical object.”
Microsoft’s High-Speed Touch-Input Test Device
There are many hurdles to overcome to bring this kind of technology to market. Not only would touch-panel and device manufacturers have to reduce the input latency, which will require significantly more processing resources and power, but any objects being manipulated on-screen would have to be re-drawn equally as fast, which will require much more graphics processing and 1000Hz screen refresh rates as well. Most current touch screen LCDs have refresh rates of 60Hz, so on-screen images can only be redrawn in about 16.6ms with today’s consumer-level products.
Whether the technology is ever offered in a consumer device or not, the research is interesting nonetheless. Reducing input latency is paramount to improving the user experience with touch-enabled devices and it’s good to see Microsoft looking to the future and investing the resources necessary to advance the technology.
