ELO
do something new, exciting and different. Multitouch might be less important on slot machines but perhaps more important in some other games, but even in slots you can work the technology into a bonus round. For engineers, you can solve some of the problems people have had in the past – PCAP improves picture quality, and it is completely scratch resistant. I mentioned earlier true flat, well you can do that two ways – you can cut a hole in the front of the cabinet and mount the monitor so it’s flat with the hull, or you can put a piece of oversized glass on top of the touchscreen and it will work through that glass. You can do that in a slot, a bar top with five monitors under one piece of glass, for example, there are so many things you can do with this technology. It even works through water!
CI: You’ve answered the next question already –
I was going to ask what this means for game and cabinet designers… MS: For the machine designers, flat is exciting. You can see in some places where an older machine has had the screen taken out and it’s had a flat screen put in, it looks new and it’s such a minor change. Other people might use multiple monitors behind one piece of glass, who knows what else designers will be able to come up with. It allows people to go in different directions. For game designers, the touch is so accurate, and
multitouch in a slot is quite a new concept – game designers could do almost anything with it. The idea of doing skill games with PCAP, the kind of games you
might play on phone or tablet, you can now do in larger formats. We’re creating a new canvas here. We are a touch technology company, and a
touchmonitor company – we are really just offering this up, and I’m sure the industry will have great creative ideas to take this technology and run with it.
CI: Is this going to be easy for game and cabinet
designers to work with right away? MS: The industry is not so familiar with this new
PCAP technically; as consumers yes, but as engineers, probably not. People can sometimes make mistakes because they are not familiar with this technology. We are trying to educate the market about this technology so people make the right choices. There are actually three kinds of PCAP, so step one is understanding those three kinds and choosing the right one. Before people jump in to PCAP, we can assure them that the price levels are good but at the same time, we take a step back and make sure the customer is educated and know what potential issues they might see.
Elo makes all three kinds of PCAP technology, as
well as the traditional SAW and surface capacitive touchscreens. We are in a good position thanks to that though because we are not favouring one over another, we just want what is best for our customers. There’s plastic PCAP and glass PCAP. In the
plastic, there are two kinds; first is mesh, then there is glass-film-film [GFF]. The way the mesh kind works is, it’s a grid of wires. Not like the touchscreens that have been before, which were
APRIL 2016 27
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66