3D mapping software will be made by Microsoft, Google, and AOL

Microsoft, Google, and AOL are the subjects of a lawsuit from a company that claims the three defendants violated the patents of its 3D mapping software. Bloomberg reports that Transcenic filed the lawsuit earlier this week. The lawsuit states that the 3D software used in all three companies' street mapping services "has injured Transcenic and Transcenic is entitled to recover damages adequate to compensate for such infringement."

Google's popular Street View feature for its Map division is involved in the lawsuit along with Microsoft's Streetwise business and AOL's MapQuest division. The Lake Charles, Louisiana-based Transcenic company claims that all three companies used 3D mapping software to show its users where to go. The company claims that the software "misappropriated technology" from Transcenic. The company itself is privately owned and doesn't even appear to have its own web site. So far spokespersons for Google and Microsoft have not yet commented on the lawsuit, according to the article. AOL did not yet respond to an inquiry.

In related news. Wired.com reports that Google lost a court battle earlier this week dealing with its Street View feature. Lawsuits filed last year claimed that Google's use of vehicles to help create the Street View images "... were equipped with WiFi sniffing hardware to record the names and MAC addresses of routers to improve Google location-specific services." A judge agreed that such actions also secretly took info from people's WiFi networks and that Google can be held liable for any damages. Google has said that the use of its Street View vehicles in that way was a "mistake' and that any info taken from WiFi networks has not yet been viewed by Google.

Yay another patent troll out for some free cash, by being privately owned and not even having a website they're not actively using there patents so morally should be declared null and void

Software Patents are perfectly legitimate & a good use of the legal system, no, not a waste of time and a waste of money into the lawyers' pockets at all.

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How do touch-screen monitors know where you're touching?

Touch-screen monitors have become more and more commonplace as their price has steadily dropped over the past decade. There are three basic systems that are used to recognize a person's touch:

• Resistive
• Capacitive
• Surface acoustic wave

The resistive system consists of a normal glass panel that is covered with a conductive and a resistive metallic layer. These two layers are held apart by spacers, and a scratch-resistant layer is placed on top of the whole setup. An electrical current runs through the two layers while the monitor is operational. When a user touches the screen, the two layers make contact in that exact spot. The change in the electrical field is noted and the coordinates of the point of contact are calculated by the computer. Once the coordinates are known, a special driver translates the touch into something that the operating system can understand, much as a computer mouse driver translates a mouse's movements into a click or a drag.

In the capacitive system, a layer that stores electrical charge is placed on the glass panel of the monitor. When a user touches the monitor with his or her finger, some of the charge is transferred to the user, so the charge on the capacitive layer decreases. This decrease is measured in circuits located at each corner of the monitor. The computer calculates, from the relative differences in charge at each corner, exactly where the touch event took place and then relays that information to the touch-screen driver software. One advantage that the capacitive system has over the resistive system is that it transmits almost 90 percent of the light from the monitor, whereas the resistive system only transmits about 75 percent. This gives the capacitive system a much clearer picture than the resistive system.

On the monitor of a surface acoustic wave system, two transducers (one receiving and one sending) are placed along the x and y axes of the monitor's glass plate. Also placed on the glass are reflectors -- they reflect an electrical signal sent from one transducer to the other. The receiving transducer is able to tell if the wave has been disturbed by a touch event at any instant, and can locate it accordingly. The wave setup has no metallic layers on the screen, allowing for 100-percent light throughput and perfect image clarity. This makes the surface acoustic wave system best for displaying detailed graphics (both other systems have significant degradation in clarity).

Terminology :Touch Screen LCD Monitor | Touch Screen | LCD Monitor | Acer Laptop | laptop batteries | Dell inspiron 1525 battery | Dell inspiron 500m battery

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