KioTouch™, a revolutionary, touchless interface solution for self-service kiosks, is now available for download. KioTouch is KioWare Kiosk System Software’s actionable response to the COVID-19 global pandemic and will prevent the spread of potentially harmful microbes and pathogens between end-users.
Empowering Users with Touchless Control
KioTouch allows the end-user to control a self-service kiosk using their own personal mobile device. The user scans a QR code, generated on the screen of the kiosk, which then opens a trackpad-style mouse interface on their device that can be used to send commands to the kiosk. Scrolling, swiping, and clicking gestures allow the user to interact with the kiosk as they normally would, but do not require the user to physically touch it. KioTouch also allows users to input specific information into custom fields using the keyboard on their mobile device, safely and securely.
Works On Any Kiosk
KioTouch works on any kiosk and does not require KioWare to be installed to run, nor does it require the user to install any apps or software on their device. This gives you flexibility when implementing this health and safety software into your kiosk network without requiring you to complete a total overhaul of the system software you currently have installed and keeps the experience totally convenient for the user!
Upsell & Marketing Opportunities Maximized
The kiosk deployer has the ability to capture more conversions and potential customers by implementing session-end content that will be displayed on the user’s mobile device after their session is over. The deployer can load in a simple “thank you” message as well as surveys, newsletter sign-ups, coupons, app downloads, and more!
Touchless Kiosk – Gesture, IR, Voice, AI, Foot & Mobile
Having touchscreens or customer input stations which utilize no-touch touchscreen technology accelerated with the advent of COVID-19 pandemic. How clean are the touchscreens is the usual question and what is involved in cleaning and maintaining touchscreen.
The added cost of a touch layer is a factor as well. Roughly a 22″ inch screen requires $220 in touch technology in order to make it a touchscreen.
Some of the options have been to reduce the area needed for touch control emulating a remote control onscreen for your screen. In large format displays this can save money.
Touchless Solutions – Companies
Olea Touchless Touchscreen Interaction
Here is an example of touchless touchscreen circa 2020 and Olea Kiosks.
From Frank Olea off LinkedIn — CONTACTLESS Touchscreen! We got them! I was super excited when we got these in our lab a few weeks ago. The system is very intuitive and does not require drivers. It’s plug and play in Windows and Android. The lighting turns on when your finger breaks the beams surface to give you an indication that the touch is active. There’s also an audio tone when you “press” a button. It works anywhere from .5” – 1” away from the glass surface. We have various sizes and can do portrait or landscape and add other features like privacy filter. Private message me or ask your Olea rep about it.
Create a fully interactive touch-free user experience through 22MILES’ Voice Activation/Recognition & Control. A component of the Digital Signage Solution Publisher Pro.AIoT, no matter the kiosk, location, or signage application, COVID-Proof the experience for users with a technology that is becoming the new standard.
Users Experience FASTER more EFFICIENT Interactions and Transactions
Find, filter and discover information, navigation, & more through voice
Eliminate the tedious tasks of searching through pages and pages of items & information…. JUST SPEAK AND GO
This is a software feature solution offered by KioWare. Windows or Android. KioWare also offers Maintenance Notification for Users so they can see “Last Cleaned” cycle.
KioWare innovations for clean touchscreens and the User Monitored Maintenance Cycle
Ed Note: Using the kiosk as the “fulcrum” or proxy is not a new idea but it is coming of age with the current situation. These new functions allow users to use their mobile phones as the proxy touchscreen. Statistically their mobile phone is a hotbed for bacteria but this method isolates users from contaminating the usually very clean touchscreen. People without mobile phones have cleaner fingers. Kind of an odd situation of juxtaposable factors.
Just released by Kiosk Innovations: Gesture-Nav is an easy to use sensor based hand gesture navigation tool. It reliably senses 5 dierent directional gestures including Up, Down, Right, Left, and Enter
The Intel RealSense Camera and several software solutions around this exist. Typically requires or uses RealSense. More information
Kiosk Innovations – Foot Controlled Navigation
Just released by Kiosk Innovations: Foot-Nav is an easy to use, easy to understand, and very reliable navigation tool. Foot-Nav allows users to use foot controls rather than touch to navigate through a user interface using the same controls as Gesture-Nav.
KIOSK Information Systems AI or Artificial Intelligence
Meanwhile KIOSK (KIS) has teamed up Valyant on conversational AI
Conversational AI Kiosk – Valyant AI & KIOSK Information Systems Enable Contactless Conversational AI
Pyramid Labs – Touchless Demo
Chief Executive Officer at Pyramid Computer GmbH
What can you play with on a Monday morning in Pyramid Computer GmbH´s lab? Contactless interaction with Ultraleap for sure is fun. Will the world ever see it in massive kiosk rollout? Who knows, but we would be ready. BTW great to be back in the lab. I missed playing on these gadgets a lot in the home office.
Our pcap controllers/sensors can be set up by any user, with sufficiently high levels of sensitivity that they will detect the approach of a finger a few mm from the surface of the glass.
The issue that all non-touch touchscreens are likely to face is the susceptibility to ‘false touches’ as unless the user’s finger is pretty perpendicular to the screen, there is a risk that a knuckle/palm may activate other areas of the touchscreen (or in the case of an IR/optical touchscreen, also inanimate objects such as a shirt sleeve). The palm rejection algorithms within our controllers’ firmware will help, but I suspect that by cranking up the touch sensitivity to such levels they’d be fighting a losing battle.
The software content/GUI will also need to be carefully designed, with larger than normal keys and wide ‘guard bands’ around the keys, again, to minimise accidentally activating surrounding keys.
NFC Touchscreens
NFC means near field communications and is a short range form of wireless technology that lets you exchange data with other NFC enabled devices. This typically involves an NFC chip and card. NFC works within a radius of 10 centimetres making it an ideal method for sending data securely.
An example of use could be a teacher using an NFC card to login to a touchscreen with an NFC reader which would then automatically log them in to their own files and folders on the local network.
Another example is a customer using an NFC enabled mobile phone, tapping an NFC reader on a touchscreen kiosk to checkout and pay for their order.
In both examples, NFC is a great way to provide speed and convenience in busy environments and negating the need to input sensitive data on-screen. Example Link
SANTA CLARA, California, June 26, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Neonode Inc., (NASDAQ: NEON), the optical sensing technology company, today announced that its zForce® Touch Solutions are now optimized for reducing pathogen transmission in hospitals and other public spaces, by enabling contact-free interaction with graphical user interface (GUIs).
Transmission of health care-associated pathogens that have been shed onto touchscreens and button panels such as elevator buttons, vending machines, information boards, and electronic menus in fast food restaurants create well-documented public health risks. Evidence supporting these risks is provided by the NIH [1]. Neonode zForce Touch Solutions enable contactless interaction with touchscreens and button panels to mitigate these risks.
A zForce Touch sensor mounted along one edge of a display provides an interaction area positioned a desired distance above the display surface as illustrated in Figure 1, below. By making the interaction area hover above the display surface, users experience touch interaction without actually coming in contact with the display, reducing the risks of shedding and receiving health care-associated pathogens through contact with the display.
A zForce Touch sensor can also be mounted beneath a panel of buttons, such as an elevator panel, to enable riders to select their floor without touching the buttons.
“The risk of contamination in hospitals and public areas is of paramount concern to facilities, customers and designers of displays and other interactive devices. Providing a safety-conscious solution without compromising performance and the user experience is the driving force behind Contactless Touch, and we believe our customers will be as excited as we are about this innovative application,” states Carl Bergendal, Executive VP Sales and Engineering at Neonode.
For more information please see “Contactless Touch- a safer method of interaction” [2] at neonode.com.
Hospitality Technology
Elevators go touchless here
Voice Control
Controlling an interface via Voice is getting better. Multiple software companies provide this now. Noisy places can require more expensive noise cancellation array microphones
Proxy Mobile
This is a software feature solution offered by KioWare. Windows or Android. KioWare also offers Maintenance Notification for Users so they can see “Last Cleaned” cycle.
Camera and Gesture
Gesture-Nav
Just released by Kiosk Innovations: Gesture-Nav is an easy to use sensor based hand gesture navigation tool. It reliably senses 5 dierent directional gestures including Up, Down, Right, Left, and Enter
The Intel RealSense Camera and several software solutions around this exist. Typically requires or uses RealSense. More information
Pyramid Labs – Touchless Gesture Demo
Chief Executive Officer at Pyramid Computer GmbH
What can you play with on a Monday morning in Pyramid Computer GmbH´s lab? Contactless interaction with Ultraleap for sure is fun. Will the world ever see it in massive kiosk rollout? Who knows, but we would be ready. BTW great to be back in the lab. I missed playing on these gadgets a lot in the home office.
Just released by Kiosk Innovations: Foot-Nav is an easy to use, easy to understand, and very reliable navigation tool. Foot-Nav allows users to use foot controls rather than touch to navigate through a user interface using the same controls as Gesture-Nav.
AI or Artificial Intelligence
Meanwhile KIOSK (KIS) has teamed up Valyant on conversational AI
Conversational AI Kiosk – Valyant AI & KIOSK Information Systems Enable Contactless Conversational AI
Camera Intel RealSense
The Intel RealSense camera is getting many more integrations and include Gesture and Facial Recognition.
There are three different versions of the camera all tailored to specific situations:
Coded Light for depth and objects [SR300]
Stereo used for facial recognition primarily [400 family]
Lidar version [515]
The F400 and D400 are most commonly used in the public space. Some interesting examples are:
Smartphones and other portable products have made touch the human machine interface (HMI) of choice for many other products. Touch sensing is easy to implement, easy to use, reliable and cost-effective. However, there are many applications and situations where physically touching a device is not desired and, in fact, in some cases must be avoided. Before discussing a solution to these more restrictive applications, a little touch sensing background is in order.
A touchy topic
According to a recent market report, there is a growing need for touch sensing [1]. The report projects the global touch sensors market will reach approximately USD 8.4 billion by 2023, growing at 12.8% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the forecast period 2018–2023. Typical touch sensing technologies include: resistive, capacitive, surface acoustic wave (SAW),infrared (IR), optical imaging and more recently acoustic pulse recognition (APR). In their most common implementation, these approaches all require actual contact with the surface. However, applications exist that do not want or must avoid physical contact and necessitate a more sophisticated sensing approach.
One possibility would be using a time-of-flight technology to identify mid-air interactions above a touchscreen [2]. Time-of-flight is a ranging technique that resolves the distance between the sensor and an object by measuring the time it takes for light to travel to an object and back to the sensor. The accuracy is on the order of 1 cm, which makes it unsuitable for touch interaction purposes. Improving the accuracy would generally mean a slower frame rate. Furthermore, this kind of sensor requires calibration and is sensitive to changes in temperature.
Another alternative is infrared technology. Traditional infrared touch requires a frame surrounding the screen with emitters on two adjacent sides and receivers on the opposing sides. The touch interactive area is raised from the screen by simply raising the frame around the screen. However, the resulting rim around the screen would not only be difficult to incorporate aesthetically in a device, it would also make the screen difficult to clean, thereby defeating one of the purposes for its usage.
Contactless Elevators & Kiosks, covers the Neonode Sensor Module and how our patented Optical Reflexive Technology provides a quick and inexpensive solution to turning traditional controls and displays into contactless, interactive devices. Ideal for new devices and to retrofit old ones, it is a practical solution to combating the spread of pathogens and other contaminants. Neonode evaluation modules and products are available today from Neonode and their distributor, DigiKey.
Holographic Elevators & Kiosks demonstrates how the Neonode Sensor Module and the ASKA3D Plate, combined with a display, and some creative engineering can turn any elevator control panel or kiosk display into an interactive holograph. It is a real upscale approach to combating the spread of pathogens and contaminants. We are currently working around-the -clock on prototypes and working models with our manufacturing partner in Arizona will be available for your evaluation in the next 30 days from Convergence Sales.
Switching to Holographic and Other Contactless Touch Solutions for Safer, Germ-free Interaction We encourage you and your customers to join us Wednesday, June 24 at 0900 PST or this ground-breaking webinar on designing and manufacturing safe, interactive displays, presented by Neonode, the industry leader in Optical Reflective Technology.
Registration opens May 15 at: Neonode.com
Interested in More information?
Touchless was last modified: July 6th, 2020 by News Editor
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google unit won approval from U.S. regulators to deploy a radar-based motion sensing device known as Project Soli.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said in an order late on Monday that it would grant Google a waiver to operate the Soli sensors at higher power levels than currently allowed. The FCC said the sensors can also be operated aboard aircraft.
The FCC said the decision “will serve the public interest by providing for innovative device control features using touchless hand gesture technology.”
A Google spokeswoman did not immediately comment on Tuesday, citing the New Year’s Day holiday.
The FCC said the Soli sensor captures motion in a three-dimensional space using a radar beam to enable touchless control of functions or features that can benefit users with mobility or speech impairments.
Google says the sensor can allow users to press an invisible button between the thumb and index fingers or a virtual dial that turns by rubbing a thumb against the index finger.
Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) team has been working on Project Soli since 2015. The gesture-based system uses broad beam radar to detect and capture hand movements, turning them into commands for mobile devices. Until now, though, the tech has been restricted, with some companies — including Facebook — claiming that the high frequency levels required might interfere with existing technology. Now, the FCC has granted a waiver that will allow Soli to operate at higher levels than currently allowed, and therefore continue development as Google originally intended.
Hand Sensor Patent by Google for Touchless Touch Moves Ahead was last modified: June 24th, 2020 by News Editor
