抬起指尖，十指翩翩，触屏又出敏感新高度
Touchscreens
触屏
The moving finger moves on
指尖轻触
Researchers find new ways to make touchscreens more responsive
研究者发现能使触屏更加敏感的新方法
Jan 30th 2016 | From the print edition
THE only way to operate an increasing number of modern devices, from smartphones to cash machines and cars, is the deft use of a finger on a touchscreen, with a tap for this and a swipe for that. But sometimes such actions do not work all that well. It is easy to miss the required key on a tiny virtual keyboard and produce splling eworrs. Sometimes the screen fails to respond at all. And it can be downright dangerous to take your eyes off the road to flip through myriad air-conditioning options on a vehicle’s control panel. Now help, as it were, is at hand. As touchscreens become ubiquitous on devices, new ways to make and use them are emerging.
Robert Bosch, a German producer of car parts, among other things, recently displayed a touchscreen with “haptic feedback”. Visual effects, sounds and vibrations are already used with touchscreens to confirm when icons or keys are selected. What the Bosch system does is to add different surface textures to the mix.
面对激增的现代电子设备，从手机到POS机、机动车，操作的唯一方法就是在屏幕上用灵敏的手指轻触一下或者轻刷一下。但是，有时这种操作并不是很灵敏。使用者很容易在很小的虚拟键盘上漏掉想按的按键，导致拼写错误。有时屏幕根本没反应。并且，当你调节车内控制面板上的复杂的空调系统时，将无暇顾及方向，更会造成危险。现在，可以说解决的方法来了。如前所述，触屏已无处不在，生产和使用触屏的新方法正不断出现。一个德国汽车部件生产商—罗伯特博世公司，除了生产汽车零部件外，最近展示出一个带有“触觉反馈”的触屏。视觉反应，声音和振动已经被用在触屏上，用来提醒用户确实选择好了图标或者按钮。博世系统所做的，就是在触屏里添加与众不同的表面材质。
The textures on the screen can be rough, smooth or patterned in various ways to represent the location of different buttons with different uses. The idea is that a driver would be able to feel for the right button without having to look at the screen. To avoid accidentally activating buttonsas he feels his way across the screen, the driver needs to press a particular surface more firmly to turn the required function on or off, much like pushing on a mechanical switch. By applying variable pressure, a user can scroll faster or slower through, say, different music tracks or radio stations.
触屏的这种材质可以是以各种方式呈现的粗糙、平滑或者模块化，用来代表不同用处不同按钮的位置。这种设计亦在让司机能够在不看屏幕的情况下，能够感觉到右边的按钮。当司机在屏幕上操作时，为了避免意外激活按钮，司机需要在屏幕上按住一个特殊表面，或者说更像一个机械开关，确保所需功能正常使用或是关闭。通过应用变压，用户可以通过语音、不同的音乐或者无线电等方式使滚动变快或者慢。
Because neoSense, as Bosch calls the system, is still under development the company will not say how it works other than that it uses a conventional touch sensor coupled with a sensor that measures the amount of pressure from fingers. That gives little away. Bosch is probably doing something similar to other groups working on such systems: placing under the screen a thin device that generates specially tuned vibrations in the area of the virtual buttons. The pattern of these vibrations would create textured effects that could be felt by the user’s fingers as if they were physical elements on the screen.
由于博世公司所谓的neoSense系统仍然在开发中，除了公开其配备了一个能够测量手指压力数量的传统传感器外，公司未透露其工作原理。这意味着什么都没透露。博世公司可能和其他研究该系统的组织做着类似的事情：在屏幕下面安置一个小的装置，该装置能够在虚拟按钮区产生特殊的协调的振动。这些振动模块将会产生质感效应，这种效应就像是屏幕的一部分，能够被用户手指所感知。
All charged up
出现的各种新技术
Although research into touchscreens dates back to the 1960s, they did not appear on consumer gadgets until the 1980s. Many of these early screens were the “resistive” type, which in its simplest form relies on a finger pushing against a ductilescreen to press two underlying conductive sheets together to complete an electric circuit. The point of contact is measured to provide the co-ordinates 坐标of the finger.
虽然有关触屏技术研究的历史可以追溯到二十世纪60年代，但是这项技术真正接触到消费者是在二十世纪80年代。许多早期的触屏都是电阻式的，其工作原理很简单，就是通过手指按压柔软的屏幕，让两张屏幕下方的导电薄片在压力下接触并形成一个电流回路。而通过测量接触点的位置可以确定手指的坐标位置。
Resistive screens are cheap to make and tough: lots are still used in restaurants to take orders and in factories to control machines. But many devices, particularly smartphones and tablets, now use a system that relies on capacitance. (Capacitance is a measure of an object’s capacity to store an electric charge. The charge builds up if there is no circuit through which the electrons can flow and is dissipated when a circuit is completed—in extreme cases as a jolt when static electricity builds up in the body and is discharged when touching something metallic.)
电阻式触屏制造成本低而且很耐用，现如今餐馆的订餐系统和工厂里控制机器的场合仍在大量使用这种触屏。但是许多其他的设备比如智能手机和平板电脑，这些设备现在使用一种电容式系统（电容是一种描述物体存储电荷能力的单位。当物体无法形成电流可以流动的回路时，电荷就会慢慢积聚。比如，当人体静电在体内慢慢积聚后，人体接触到金属物体时就会发生轻微电击的放电现象）。
There are a number of ways in which capacitive touchscreens can be made. The current favourite uses a grid of tiny wires made from a transparent, conducting material, usually indium tin oxide, just below the surface of the screen. When a finger touches the screen, or is very close to it, an electrostatic field created in the grid is disturbed by a small change in capacitance at the point at which the charge transfers to the finger. The software in a chip which controls the screen detects the position of the change in capacitance and uses it to determine the finger’s location. Capacitive touchscreens are smooth to operate and require only a light touch. They also allow the use of more than one finger, making “pinch and zoom” movements possible.
生产电容式触屏的方法有很多种。现在最常用的方法是使用一种透明的导电材料（常见材料如铟锡氧化物）制成的细线网格，这种网格的安装位置在屏幕表面的下边。当手指接触到或是非常接近于屏幕上某点时，该点位置的电荷就会转移到手指上，该点微小的电容量就会改变，而原先由网格形成的静电场也会因此被破坏。当手机电路板中控制屏幕的软件程序探测到电容改变的位置时，就能以此确定手指的位置。电容式触屏操作起来很光滑，并且所需的接触力很小。这种触屏也允许进行多手指的操作，使得“缩小放大”这样的操作姿势变得可行。
Most research now is going into improving capacitive devices and integrating the conducting layers into the screen to make thinner displays, says Jeff Han, a pioneer of multi-touch systems. His company, Perceptive Pixel, developed giant touchscreens used by some news organisations for election coverage and was sold to Microsoft in 2012. Mr Han says users should expect to see more ways to use fingers and gestures to operate touchscreens, along with additional haptic effects.
据一位名叫Jeff Han的多点触控系统的前沿专家介绍，许多相关研究已经开始改进电容式设备，并且将导电层与屏幕结合以制成更薄的显示装置。他的公司Perceptive Pixel研发了巨型触屏，这种产品曾被一些新闻机构用来报道选举新闻。在2012年时这家公司被卖给了微软。Han先生说，使用者们希望除了直接接触的方法之外，还能有更多的方法去使用手指和各种姿势去操作触屏。
More capacitive screens will become pressure-sensitive. Apple’s latest iPhone 6s responds to finger pressure with a process the company calls 3D Touch. The phone has another sensor below the screen which can detect a minute deformation in the glass when a finger is pushed against it. This allows additional actions by the user, such as pressing to preview a message or e-mail before opening it. Apple has also added haptic effects with something it calls a “taptic engine”, in effect a refined tiny vibrator which provides subtle taps in response to certain finger movements.
更多的电容式屏幕将会变成压敏式的。苹果公司最新的iPhone 6s手机能够通过一种该公司称之为3D接触的技术过程对手指的按压进行反应。这款手机在屏幕下方另安装有一种传感器，在有手指按压屏幕玻璃时，这种传感器可以探测到微小的玻璃变形。这种技术可让使用者使用更多的操作姿势，比如在正式打开短信或电子邮件前可通过按压来进行预览。苹果公司也已经使用了一种称为“震动马达”的触觉效果技术，这种技术实际上是通过一种优化的微小震动器产生微弱震动来对特定的手指运动进行反应。
To boost the responsiveness of touchscreens, alternatives to indium tin oxide are starting to be used. Although the material is transparent it is only moderately conductive, which can restrict just how responsive a screen is to touch. Metals, particularly gold and silver, are much better conductors, but not being transparent, they can interfere with the displayed image unless deposited in minute quantities—which reduces conductivity. One way around that problem has been developed by Dimos Poulikakos and his colleagues at ETH Zurich, a Swiss technical university. This involves building gold and silver capacitive grids as “nanowalls”, just 80-500 nanometres (billionths of a metre) wide. As the walls are perpendicular to the screen and two to four times taller than their width, the grid is highly conductive but almost invisible.
为了提升触屏的反应能力，人们开始使用新材料来代替铟锡氧化物。虽然这种材料是透明的，但是它的导电性能较为一般，这就限制了触屏对于手指接触的反应能力。一些金属比如金和银虽然是更好的导体，但不透明。而且这些金属也会干扰屏幕显示图案，除非金属的放置量很小，但这又会降低导电能力。好在来自瑞士一所理工大学ETH Zurich的研究人员Dimos Poulikakos和他的同事已经研究出来了这个难题的解决方案。该方案是将金银金属制成宽度仅有80——500纳米（一纳米等于十亿分之一米）的电容式网格，称为“纳米墙”。这种纳米墙是垂直于屏幕安装的，并且其高度是宽度的2至4倍，所以这种金属网格的导电性非常好而且几乎完全透明。
Printing walls
打印纳米墙
Dr Poulikakos’s nanowalls are made with a new form of 3D printing. The process begins with gold or silver nanoparticles suspended in a solvent. This “ink” is drawn out of a tiny glass capillary tube by an electric field to form a drop which remains hanging onto the tip of the tube. By carefully balancing the composition of the ink and the electric field, the researchers have been able to get an even smaller droplet to form at the base of the attached drop. It is these secondary droplets which are used to print the nano walls.
Poulikakos博士的纳米墙是通过一种叫做3D打印的新方式制造出来的。这个制造过程开始时会用到一种充满金银纳米颗粒的溶液。这种3D打印用的溶液就好像打印机的油墨，会被电磁场力通过微小的玻璃毛细管拖拽出来，然后在管子的端口悬挂凝固。通过仔细平衡这种溶液的成分和电磁场，研究人员可以在悬挂的液滴底端形成更小的液滴。通过这些不断叠加的液滴就可以打印出纳米墙。
Using nanoparticles means the cost of printing grids with precious metals, such as gold or silver, is not a concern, says Dr Poulikakos. Indeed, he reckons the “nanodrip” process would be a lot cheaper than current methods used to produce capacitive grids for touchscreens as these rely on costly clean rooms and vapour-deposition equipment, similar to that used to make computer chips. Nanodrip is now being scaled up for commercial use by a spin-off company called Scrona.
使用纳米颗粒就意味着打印贵重金属（比如金或银）纳米网格的成本不再是一个问题，Poulikakos博士介绍说。确实是这样，现在加工触屏的电容式网格需要昂贵的洁净室和气相沉积设备，这几乎和生产计算机芯片的生产条件差不多。而博士估计使用纳米液滴的加工过程会比现在的加工方法花费小很多。现在，一家叫做Scrona的分拆上市公司为了商业目的已经规模化使用这种纳米液滴式加工方法。
Other conductive materials that might be used to build touchscreens include graphene, a lattice of carbon atoms which, being only one atom thick, is essentially transparent. Researchers at the University of Manchester in Britain, where graphene was discovered, reckon the material can be used to make touchscreens which are flexible enough to roll up like a newspaper. This is because, unlike indium tin oxide, graphene is not brittle.
其他能够用来生产触屏的导电材料包括石墨烯，这种碳原子格状物的厚度只有一个原子直径，所以这种材料几乎透明。石墨烯是在英国的曼彻斯特大学被发现的，那里的研究人员认为这种材料可以用来制造像报纸一样可以卷起来的的弹性触屏。这是因为石墨烯不像铟锡氧化物那样脆。
It will also become possible to operate touchscreens without actually touching them. Samsung has already employed tiny infra-red sensors just above the screen on some of its phones to detect hand gestures. Google is developing a miniature radar chip that could be embedded behind the screen itself to do much the same thing. The chip is supposed to be sensitive enough to pick up complex gestures, such as twirling a finger in a clockwise circle to increase the volume on a virtual dial or anticlockwise to reduce it.
无实际接触地操作触屏的技术已经成为可能。三星公司已经在某些款手机屏幕上安装了微小的红外线传感器，这些传感器用来探测使用者的手姿势。Google正在研制的一种微型雷达芯片作用也差不多是同样原理，这种雷达芯片安置在手机屏幕下方。研究人员认为这种芯片的灵敏度很高可以捕捉到一些复杂的动作姿势，比如顺时针旋转手指可以在一个虚拟表盘上增加手机音量，而逆时针旋转手指可以降低音量。
Such technology could work on touchscreens in cars, too, without distracting drivers. BMW has developed a touchscreen that uses a camera in the roof of the car to recognise hand gestures. If the phone rings, say, you can simply point towards the screen to take the call; if it’s the office, swiping your hand to the side will reject it. Add in fast-improving speech-recognition systems, such as Apple’s Siri and Microsoft’s Cortana, and the amount of time people spend jabbing, gesticulating and talking to their devices will only rise.
这种技术可以在汽车触屏上发挥作用，而且绝对不会让驾驶员分神。BMW已经研制了一种触屏，是利用车顶的一个摄像机去识别手姿势。比如说，电话响了后你可以很简单的指向屏幕然后接通电话。如果来的是讨厌的办公电话，你可以滑动手指向一侧拒接来电。再加入现在发展势头迅猛的语音识别系统（比如苹果的Siri和微软的Cortana），人们肯定会花更多时间去对手机摆各种姿势，或是对着手机滔滔不绝。
单词词组：
jolt 突然的一击；猛击
indium tin oxide铟锡氧化物
multi-touch systems 多点触控系统
Haptic 触觉的
Taptic engine: Taptic Engine是苹果产品上推出的全新震动模块，该元件最早出现在Apple Watch智能手表设备中，苹果新款iPhone 6s和iPhone 6s Plus手机中，也同样内置了Taptic Engine，设计上有所升级。简单来说，Taptic Engine是苹果新设备中，采用的全新震动模块，这颗震动模块经过特殊设计，能在短时间内达到震动的最佳状态，这与普通振动马达所做不到的。
审核：沐恩
Nanowalls：纳米墙
Perpendicular：垂直的，成直角的; 直立的，险陡的
vapour-deposition 气相沉积
a spin-off company 分拆的上市公司
Graphene 石墨烯
infra-red 红外线的
触屏
The moving finger moves on
指尖轻触
Researchers find new ways to make touchscreens more responsive
研究者发现能使触屏更加敏感的新方法
Jan 30th 2016 | From the print edition
THE only way to operate an increasing number of modern devices, from smartphones to cash machines and cars, is the deft use of a finger on a touchscreen, with a tap for this and a swipe for that. But sometimes such actions do not work all that well. It is easy to miss the required key on a tiny virtual keyboard and produce splling eworrs. Sometimes the screen fails to respond at all. And it can be downright dangerous to take your eyes off the road to flip through myriad air-conditioning options on a vehicle’s control panel. Now help, as it were, is at hand. As touchscreens become ubiquitous on devices, new ways to make and use them are emerging.
Robert Bosch, a German producer of car parts, among other things, recently displayed a touchscreen with “haptic feedback”. Visual effects, sounds and vibrations are already used with touchscreens to confirm when icons or keys are selected. What the Bosch system does is to add different surface textures to the mix.
面对激增的现代电子设备，从手机到POS机、机动车，操作的唯一方法就是在屏幕上用灵敏的手指轻触一下或者轻刷一下。但是，有时这种操作并不是很灵敏。使用者很容易在很小的虚拟键盘上漏掉想按的按键，导致拼写错误。有时屏幕根本没反应。并且，当你调节车内控制面板上的复杂的空调系统时，将无暇顾及方向，更会造成危险。现在，可以说解决的方法来了。如前所述，触屏已无处不在，生产和使用触屏的新方法正不断出现。一个德国汽车部件生产商—罗伯特博世公司，除了生产汽车零部件外，最近展示出一个带有“触觉反馈”的触屏。视觉反应，声音和振动已经被用在触屏上，用来提醒用户确实选择好了图标或者按钮。博世系统所做的，就是在触屏里添加与众不同的表面材质。
The textures on the screen can be rough, smooth or patterned in various ways to represent the location of different buttons with different uses. The idea is that a driver would be able to feel for the right button without having to look at the screen. To avoid accidentally activating buttonsas he feels his way across the screen, the driver needs to press a particular surface more firmly to turn the required function on or off, much like pushing on a mechanical switch. By applying variable pressure, a user can scroll faster or slower through, say, different music tracks or radio stations.
触屏的这种材质可以是以各种方式呈现的粗糙、平滑或者模块化，用来代表不同用处不同按钮的位置。这种设计亦在让司机能够在不看屏幕的情况下，能够感觉到右边的按钮。当司机在屏幕上操作时，为了避免意外激活按钮，司机需要在屏幕上按住一个特殊表面，或者说更像一个机械开关，确保所需功能正常使用或是关闭。通过应用变压，用户可以通过语音、不同的音乐或者无线电等方式使滚动变快或者慢。
Because neoSense, as Bosch calls the system, is still under development the company will not say how it works other than that it uses a conventional touch sensor coupled with a sensor that measures the amount of pressure from fingers. That gives little away. Bosch is probably doing something similar to other groups working on such systems: placing under the screen a thin device that generates specially tuned vibrations in the area of the virtual buttons. The pattern of these vibrations would create textured effects that could be felt by the user’s fingers as if they were physical elements on the screen.
由于博世公司所谓的neoSense系统仍然在开发中，除了公开其配备了一个能够测量手指压力数量的传统传感器外，公司未透露其工作原理。这意味着什么都没透露。博世公司可能和其他研究该系统的组织做着类似的事情：在屏幕下面安置一个小的装置，该装置能够在虚拟按钮区产生特殊的协调的振动。这些振动模块将会产生质感效应，这种效应就像是屏幕的一部分，能够被用户手指所感知。
All charged up
出现的各种新技术
Although research into touchscreens dates back to the 1960s, they did not appear on consumer gadgets until the 1980s. Many of these early screens were the “resistive” type, which in its simplest form relies on a finger pushing against a ductilescreen to press two underlying conductive sheets together to complete an electric circuit. The point of contact is measured to provide the co-ordinates 坐标of the finger.
虽然有关触屏技术研究的历史可以追溯到二十世纪60年代，但是这项技术真正接触到消费者是在二十世纪80年代。许多早期的触屏都是电阻式的，其工作原理很简单，就是通过手指按压柔软的屏幕，让两张屏幕下方的导电薄片在压力下接触并形成一个电流回路。而通过测量接触点的位置可以确定手指的坐标位置。
Resistive screens are cheap to make and tough: lots are still used in restaurants to take orders and in factories to control machines. But many devices, particularly smartphones and tablets, now use a system that relies on capacitance. (Capacitance is a measure of an object’s capacity to store an electric charge. The charge builds up if there is no circuit through which the electrons can flow and is dissipated when a circuit is completed—in extreme cases as a jolt when static electricity builds up in the body and is discharged when touching something metallic.)
电阻式触屏制造成本低而且很耐用，现如今餐馆的订餐系统和工厂里控制机器的场合仍在大量使用这种触屏。但是许多其他的设备比如智能手机和平板电脑，这些设备现在使用一种电容式系统（电容是一种描述物体存储电荷能力的单位。当物体无法形成电流可以流动的回路时，电荷就会慢慢积聚。比如，当人体静电在体内慢慢积聚后，人体接触到金属物体时就会发生轻微电击的放电现象）。
There are a number of ways in which capacitive touchscreens can be made. The current favourite uses a grid of tiny wires made from a transparent, conducting material, usually indium tin oxide, just below the surface of the screen. When a finger touches the screen, or is very close to it, an electrostatic field created in the grid is disturbed by a small change in capacitance at the point at which the charge transfers to the finger. The software in a chip which controls the screen detects the position of the change in capacitance and uses it to determine the finger’s location. Capacitive touchscreens are smooth to operate and require only a light touch. They also allow the use of more than one finger, making “pinch and zoom” movements possible.
生产电容式触屏的方法有很多种。现在最常用的方法是使用一种透明的导电材料（常见材料如铟锡氧化物）制成的细线网格，这种网格的安装位置在屏幕表面的下边。当手指接触到或是非常接近于屏幕上某点时，该点位置的电荷就会转移到手指上，该点微小的电容量就会改变，而原先由网格形成的静电场也会因此被破坏。当手机电路板中控制屏幕的软件程序探测到电容改变的位置时，就能以此确定手指的位置。电容式触屏操作起来很光滑，并且所需的接触力很小。这种触屏也允许进行多手指的操作，使得“缩小放大”这样的操作姿势变得可行。
Most research now is going into improving capacitive devices and integrating the conducting layers into the screen to make thinner displays, says Jeff Han, a pioneer of multi-touch systems. His company, Perceptive Pixel, developed giant touchscreens used by some news organisations for election coverage and was sold to Microsoft in 2012. Mr Han says users should expect to see more ways to use fingers and gestures to operate touchscreens, along with additional haptic effects.
据一位名叫Jeff Han的多点触控系统的前沿专家介绍，许多相关研究已经开始改进电容式设备，并且将导电层与屏幕结合以制成更薄的显示装置。他的公司Perceptive Pixel研发了巨型触屏，这种产品曾被一些新闻机构用来报道选举新闻。在2012年时这家公司被卖给了微软。Han先生说，使用者们希望除了直接接触的方法之外，还能有更多的方法去使用手指和各种姿势去操作触屏。
More capacitive screens will become pressure-sensitive. Apple’s latest iPhone 6s responds to finger pressure with a process the company calls 3D Touch. The phone has another sensor below the screen which can detect a minute deformation in the glass when a finger is pushed against it. This allows additional actions by the user, such as pressing to preview a message or e-mail before opening it. Apple has also added haptic effects with something it calls a “taptic engine”, in effect a refined tiny vibrator which provides subtle taps in response to certain finger movements.
更多的电容式屏幕将会变成压敏式的。苹果公司最新的iPhone 6s手机能够通过一种该公司称之为3D接触的技术过程对手指的按压进行反应。这款手机在屏幕下方另安装有一种传感器，在有手指按压屏幕玻璃时，这种传感器可以探测到微小的玻璃变形。这种技术可让使用者使用更多的操作姿势，比如在正式打开短信或电子邮件前可通过按压来进行预览。苹果公司也已经使用了一种称为“震动马达”的触觉效果技术，这种技术实际上是通过一种优化的微小震动器产生微弱震动来对特定的手指运动进行反应。
To boost the responsiveness of touchscreens, alternatives to indium tin oxide are starting to be used. Although the material is transparent it is only moderately conductive, which can restrict just how responsive a screen is to touch. Metals, particularly gold and silver, are much better conductors, but not being transparent, they can interfere with the displayed image unless deposited in minute quantities—which reduces conductivity. One way around that problem has been developed by Dimos Poulikakos and his colleagues at ETH Zurich, a Swiss technical university. This involves building gold and silver capacitive grids as “nanowalls”, just 80-500 nanometres (billionths of a metre) wide. As the walls are perpendicular to the screen and two to four times taller than their width, the grid is highly conductive but almost invisible.
为了提升触屏的反应能力，人们开始使用新材料来代替铟锡氧化物。虽然这种材料是透明的，但是它的导电性能较为一般，这就限制了触屏对于手指接触的反应能力。一些金属比如金和银虽然是更好的导体，但不透明。而且这些金属也会干扰屏幕显示图案，除非金属的放置量很小，但这又会降低导电能力。好在来自瑞士一所理工大学ETH Zurich的研究人员Dimos Poulikakos和他的同事已经研究出来了这个难题的解决方案。该方案是将金银金属制成宽度仅有80——500纳米（一纳米等于十亿分之一米）的电容式网格，称为“纳米墙”。这种纳米墙是垂直于屏幕安装的，并且其高度是宽度的2至4倍，所以这种金属网格的导电性非常好而且几乎完全透明。
Printing walls
打印纳米墙
Dr Poulikakos’s nanowalls are made with a new form of 3D printing. The process begins with gold or silver nanoparticles suspended in a solvent. This “ink” is drawn out of a tiny glass capillary tube by an electric field to form a drop which remains hanging onto the tip of the tube. By carefully balancing the composition of the ink and the electric field, the researchers have been able to get an even smaller droplet to form at the base of the attached drop. It is these secondary droplets which are used to print the nano walls.
Poulikakos博士的纳米墙是通过一种叫做3D打印的新方式制造出来的。这个制造过程开始时会用到一种充满金银纳米颗粒的溶液。这种3D打印用的溶液就好像打印机的油墨，会被电磁场力通过微小的玻璃毛细管拖拽出来，然后在管子的端口悬挂凝固。通过仔细平衡这种溶液的成分和电磁场，研究人员可以在悬挂的液滴底端形成更小的液滴。通过这些不断叠加的液滴就可以打印出纳米墙。
Using nanoparticles means the cost of printing grids with precious metals, such as gold or silver, is not a concern, says Dr Poulikakos. Indeed, he reckons the “nanodrip” process would be a lot cheaper than current methods used to produce capacitive grids for touchscreens as these rely on costly clean rooms and vapour-deposition equipment, similar to that used to make computer chips. Nanodrip is now being scaled up for commercial use by a spin-off company called Scrona.
使用纳米颗粒就意味着打印贵重金属（比如金或银）纳米网格的成本不再是一个问题，Poulikakos博士介绍说。确实是这样，现在加工触屏的电容式网格需要昂贵的洁净室和气相沉积设备，这几乎和生产计算机芯片的生产条件差不多。而博士估计使用纳米液滴的加工过程会比现在的加工方法花费小很多。现在，一家叫做Scrona的分拆上市公司为了商业目的已经规模化使用这种纳米液滴式加工方法。
Other conductive materials that might be used to build touchscreens include graphene, a lattice of carbon atoms which, being only one atom thick, is essentially transparent. Researchers at the University of Manchester in Britain, where graphene was discovered, reckon the material can be used to make touchscreens which are flexible enough to roll up like a newspaper. This is because, unlike indium tin oxide, graphene is not brittle.
其他能够用来生产触屏的导电材料包括石墨烯，这种碳原子格状物的厚度只有一个原子直径，所以这种材料几乎透明。石墨烯是在英国的曼彻斯特大学被发现的，那里的研究人员认为这种材料可以用来制造像报纸一样可以卷起来的的弹性触屏。这是因为石墨烯不像铟锡氧化物那样脆。
It will also become possible to operate touchscreens without actually touching them. Samsung has already employed tiny infra-red sensors just above the screen on some of its phones to detect hand gestures. Google is developing a miniature radar chip that could be embedded behind the screen itself to do much the same thing. The chip is supposed to be sensitive enough to pick up complex gestures, such as twirling a finger in a clockwise circle to increase the volume on a virtual dial or anticlockwise to reduce it.
无实际接触地操作触屏的技术已经成为可能。三星公司已经在某些款手机屏幕上安装了微小的红外线传感器，这些传感器用来探测使用者的手姿势。Google正在研制的一种微型雷达芯片作用也差不多是同样原理，这种雷达芯片安置在手机屏幕下方。研究人员认为这种芯片的灵敏度很高可以捕捉到一些复杂的动作姿势，比如顺时针旋转手指可以在一个虚拟表盘上增加手机音量，而逆时针旋转手指可以降低音量。
Such technology could work on touchscreens in cars, too, without distracting drivers. BMW has developed a touchscreen that uses a camera in the roof of the car to recognise hand gestures. If the phone rings, say, you can simply point towards the screen to take the call; if it’s the office, swiping your hand to the side will reject it. Add in fast-improving speech-recognition systems, such as Apple’s Siri and Microsoft’s Cortana, and the amount of time people spend jabbing, gesticulating and talking to their devices will only rise.
这种技术可以在汽车触屏上发挥作用，而且绝对不会让驾驶员分神。BMW已经研制了一种触屏，是利用车顶的一个摄像机去识别手姿势。比如说，电话响了后你可以很简单的指向屏幕然后接通电话。如果来的是讨厌的办公电话，你可以滑动手指向一侧拒接来电。再加入现在发展势头迅猛的语音识别系统（比如苹果的Siri和微软的Cortana），人们肯定会花更多时间去对手机摆各种姿势，或是对着手机滔滔不绝。
单词词组：
jolt 突然的一击；猛击
indium tin oxide铟锡氧化物
multi-touch systems 多点触控系统
Haptic 触觉的
Taptic engine: Taptic Engine是苹果产品上推出的全新震动模块，该元件最早出现在Apple Watch智能手表设备中，苹果新款iPhone 6s和iPhone 6s Plus手机中，也同样内置了Taptic Engine，设计上有所升级。简单来说，Taptic Engine是苹果新设备中，采用的全新震动模块，这颗震动模块经过特殊设计，能在短时间内达到震动的最佳状态，这与普通振动马达所做不到的。
审核：沐恩
Nanowalls：纳米墙
Perpendicular：垂直的，成直角的; 直立的，险陡的
vapour-deposition 气相沉积
a spin-off company 分拆的上市公司
Graphene 石墨烯
infra-red 红外线的
来自 豆瓣App
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