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US Navy will replace touchscreen with mechanical controls on its destroyers

theverge.com

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Re: US Navy will replace touchscreen with mechanical controls on its destroyers

#281

Post by gesman »

Justsignedup wrote: post #198

Wait. Let me get this straight. Touchscreens, which are ideal for representing multiple user unterfaces in an intuitive way, but requiring constant visual contact are being replaced by a physical user interface that can be used by both touch, and memory? Why was touchscreen ever even a consideration for controls you're not looking at? Touchscreen is great for phones. It is awful for keyboards (see macbook pro). And i…

+1

Touchscreens are vulnerable for fat fingering.

Every time i carry my touchscreenable laptop - it gets crazy because of accidental touches, moves, brushes and if i forget to lock the screen completely - this bordering with disaster, such as deleted files, moved folders, spradically launched apps, etc..

Re: US Navy will replace touchscreen with mechanical controls on its destroyers

#282

Post by dfox »

cletus wrote: post #110

Great. If only monitor manufacturers would do the same thing. I have a monitor with exactly 2 inputs (1 DP, 1 HDMI). What do I need to do to switch between them? 1. Press the Menu button 2. Move the option to Input Source 3. Select Input Source 4. Move from one to the other 5. Press Select Some monitor will compress 1-3 into a single Input Source option. Still, 3 presses? Why does literally NO ONE make a monitor with…

Dell monitors either have (often even backlit to show state) physical input source buttons or the arrow buttons can be remapped in OSD menu to serve as input source shortcuts (both for particular input and for the input source menu).

Re: US Navy will replace touchscreen with mechanical controls on its destroyers

#283

Post by jpindar »

atoav wrote: post #205
azernik wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were useful because they can be reconfigured on-demand to different interfaces - e.g. you can route helmsman's responsibilities to a different bridge station in case of hardware damage or human casualties.

As someone who designs ans builds modular synthesizer modules: so can mechanical interfaces if designed appropriately. Add labels on the display and use a set of generic controls and boom, you can use the same hardware for a ton of functions given the right abstractions.

Sure. Softkeys - a row of buttons around the edges of the screen - are how a lot of electronic test equipment works.

In fact the UI can be identical for a device with softkeys vs. one with a touchscreen. It causes a few DOH! moments when you are working with some instruments that work one way and some the other, but this isn't nearly as annoying as you might expect.

You still have to look at the screen though. Unless maybe you could 'lock' the UI into one mode (with no sub-menus), which might be a good compromise for vehicles.

Re: US Navy will replace touchscreen with mechanical controls on its destroyers

#284

Post by cryptozeus »

“The report says that while fatigue and lack of training played a role in the accident, the design of the ship’s control console were also contributing factors”

I hope this is not just a scapegoat and actual issue is being fixed.

Re: US Navy will replace touchscreen with mechanical controls on its destroyers

#285

Post by reificator »

devnulloverflow wrote: post #245
reificator wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unexpectedly, it turned out to be faster for users too. I'm not anti-touchscreen by any measure, but did you really find that surprising? It seems common knowledge to me that keyboard shortcuts are faster than touchscreens for most tasks.

Ever since mouses and GUIs were invented it was common knowledge that "ordinary" users don't bother to learn keyboard shortcuts. That common knowledge is wrong, but it comes from an important truth: brand new users who are not yet committed to your product will get frustrated if the thing they need to do is hidden away as a key-binding or command-line command. So successful products optimise for the UX of a user who…

But I wasn't talking about onboarding. I was talking about the speed of people using your software to do work on either a touchscreen or a keyboard.

Re: US Navy will replace touchscreen with mechanical controls on its destroyers

#286

Post by heavenlyblue »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #266
zaat wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the spec it uses the touchscreen, or at least some touchscreens: >On-screen detection: Touch digitizer reports the onscreen location through a capacitive pattern (Studio only) https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/surface-dial/925r551sktgn?...

Right, to sense location, not rotation. Rotation goes through Bluetooth, as with any number of existing knob controllers.

What if the metal base of the rotatable knob has a certain rotationaly asymmetric pattern instead of being completely flat?

We would then be able to receive that pattern and understand how the knob is rotated.

What’s the resolution of todays touchscreen?

Re: US Navy will replace touchscreen with mechanical controls on its destroyers

#287

Post by aerodude »

Someone1234 wrote: post #48
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: Why don't modern cars yet monitor humidity in and outside the car and make the correct decisions to keep your windows clear? Why are we focusing on self-driving cars while our cars are too dumb to do this much on their own?

It isn't caused by any specific humidity levels. While it is depositing water droplets on to the glass surface, that same water is normally suspended harmlessly in the air (it is effectively de-humidifying the air onto the cold windows). It is caused by the glass's surface temperature being much lower than the air temperature inside the car. Humans are warm. The air we breath is warm. We're heating up the interior of…

Wouldn't it be easier to point a camera at the windshield and detect a change in opacity? I would think that's a far easier problem to solve than, say, facial recognition.

Re: US Navy will replace touchscreen with mechanical controls on its destroyers

#288

Post by megaremote »

lucb1e wrote: post #172
a3n wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rough roads too.

Oh boy, driving through the shit town of Haaren by bus while trying to text my girlfriend I'll be there in 10. I miss my Nokia 6230i or E75 so much during those times. I don't get why nobody made an E75-style phone with Android, I look for it every time I need a new phone but there is never anything reasonable.

They do make them. People keep pretending they don't exist without even looking for them.

Re: US Navy will replace touchscreen with mechanical controls on its destroyers

#289

Post by sitkack »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #266
zaat wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the spec it uses the touchscreen, or at least some touchscreens: >On-screen detection: Touch digitizer reports the onscreen location through a capacitive pattern (Studio only) https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/surface-dial/925r551sktgn?...

Right, to sense location, not rotation. Rotation goes through Bluetooth, as with any number of existing knob controllers.

Funny, I have a whole sketch for this. Well the cat is out of the bag, we might as well complete this to prevent any patents.

I envision using cam levered suction cups to hold on rotary and linear sliders that had touch screen sensitive rubber tips. One could go as far to 3d print arbitrary interaction devices that could get attached to the face of the touch screen. You can use the multitouch sensor w/o the screen but still be able to configure arbitrary devices to go on the front.

I even had a design for joystick. Lots of analog opportunities when you have something like a back illuminated camera or a touch controller that can sense areas. You could also serially transfer data from the device to the touch screen, either using physical touches or electrically simulated touches.

Re: US Navy will replace touchscreen with mechanical controls on its destroyers

#290

Post by drdaeman »

mort96 wrote: post #108
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like you're making some very false choices between smarts/voice compatibility and physical controls. Physical buttons and dials for users to interact with that still can be changed by the system are wholly possible. For instance, a rocker switch that sits in the middle can be used to issue on and off commands, while being separate from say, a status light that lets you know whether the device is on or off. Whi…

Voice controls suck and are exclusionary as fuck. Maybe they work for the subset of the population who natively speak a very standard dialect of American or British and have no speech impediments; for those people it's just an annoyance to have to pause the podcast or music. For the rest of the population of this planet, voice controls are horrible; either the user doesn't speak the supported languages at all, or spe…

> For the rest of the population of this planet, voice controls are horrible

Please count me out. I'm a non-native English speaker, with a strong accent, and I'd absolutely prefer voice control over having to:

1) Remove my right hand from the steering wheel, reaching forward where the controls are. There is a good reason all important controls (besides pedals) are on the steering column. 2) Either a) moving my eyes away from the road for a moment, looking for the knob; or b) trying to find the exact controls by touch and memory.

> an infuriating experience to try to make the bloody machine correctly interpret what you're saying

Machines are limited - and despite marketers wanting us to believe otherwise, I don't expect them to display comprehension natural human languages better than my cat does. Like I query search engines with keywords and special syntax, and not proper sentences, I expect to communicate with the machine in a special, non-natural language.

Restricted speech recognition with strict grammar and limited vocabulary works quite OK those days. It's the general-purpose voice recognition and "smart" assistants are things that suck hard.

Heck, maybe I'm a total weirdo, but I'd rather learn a special conlang than reach for AC controls by touch.

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