Is RIM working on a new Blackberry model that will come with a hybrid touchscreen display technology? That indeed appears to be the case going by a recent patent application made public by the company. In the filing titled “TOUCH-SENSITIVE DISPLAY WITH CAPACITIVE AND RESISTIVE TOUCH SENSORS AND METHOD OF CONTROL”, RIM describes a touchscreen technology that will detect whether the touch input carries characteristics of a capacitive or resistive input and will perform functions based on these inputs.
The patent application reads,
“When the force applied to the touch-sensitive display exceeds the force threshold that causes the resistive touch sensors to contact each other, a touch is detected via the resistive touch-sensitive overlay and the resistive touch-sensitive controller. The resistive location of the touch is determined utilizing the resistive touch sensors of the resistive touch-sensitive overlay. The resistive touch sensors effectively determine the center of the force of the touch. The force threshold that causes the resistive touch sensors to contact each other is known.
The capacitive touch-sensitive overlay includes capacitive touch sensors separated by a barrier. The overlay may also include a substrate, a ground shield, a barrier on which one of the capacitive touch sensors is disposed, and a cover disposed on the other capacitive touch sensor.”
While this definitely sounds like an interesting technology, I wonder if there is any use case for such a device. What do you think?