There are two reasons not to like touchscreen panels: they are a magnet for fingerprints and while using your hand to touch it there’s a big portion that’s being hidden from your view making it impractical sometimes. Researchers are not accepting the fact that the future is now (as in touchscreens) and have worked a lot to improve the touch input concept. The latest trick are rear mounted touch panels which allow users to control devices by dragging/pressing and touching a rear mounted touch pad (just like in laptops).

    Synaptics had the Fuse concept shown a few weeks ago where a normal cellphone was fitted with a rear touch panel, two side strips (for scrolling) and a normal touch screen in front. Once you switched to the rear panel a cursor in form of a while light showed up on the screen, indicating where you were touching the back. Check out the prototype demo at work below:

    Another interesting concept is the Motorola Backflip, an apparently ordinary flip phone but with the keyboard on the ‘wrong’ side of the base and with a small touch panel mounted on the back of the display. This device is running Android OS so for now there’s no way to see where you’re at while using the back panel, but this might be solved in future with a simple app that puts a cursor where your finger lies, to make control movements more precise.

    There are rumors even saying that the next generation iPhone will use such a rear touch zone on the back to help those who want to see the screen at all times or for people like me who like to have their screen clean. My take on this technology idea is that it can’t go wrong if implemented correctly (I mean with a cursor on screen and a forgiving interface that helps you first select then confirm your touch).

    Source: Pocketables