FIRST MULTITOUCH LCD ARRAY DEVELOPER TO LAUNCH IN U.S

MultiTouch, Ltd., developer of the world’s first modular multi-touch LCD screen for large-scale displays, has officially launched its U.S. presence this week. The company, based in Helsinki, Finland, will initially operate its North American operations from offices in New York City and San Jose, California. MultiTouch recently presented at CES 2010 the first native Windows 7 multitouch applications for its MultiTouch Cell displays, providing new opportunities for Windows 7 application developers.

MultiTouch will conduct demonstrations of its systems at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City, at 45 E. 45th Street in the Lexington Suite, on Wednesday, March 10th and Thursday, March 11th, from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm. The company will demonstrate its Windows 7 native multitouch support on the MultiTouch Cell table, as well as an eight-foot-wide multitouch wall that connects four LCD-based Full HD Cells, as well as the MultiTouch Cornerstone SDK for multi-platform support, including Windows, Mac, and Linux.

The MultiTouch Cell displays enable multiple users to manipulate images on the displays – whether playing games, resizing maps, pictures, or videos – by tracking the actual fingers and hands, for richer interaction. The modular MultiTouch displays can be configured as stand-alone 32-inch or 46-inch units, or can be stacked for large-scale commercial/industrial displays. The company’s patented high-performance system tracks an unlimited number of hands on the screens at 120 frames per second, in bright daylight and dark environments. The MultiTouch Cell is a modular and stackable LCD cell with built-in multiuser and multitouch capabilities with full HD 1920×1080 pixel resolution.

“The collaborative display market is about to explode, as people learn how to use multitouch smartphone and PC kiosk applications and integrate them into real-time collaborative use. Our software and hardware designs can be customized for elaborate networked applications that take full advantage of existing operating systems and applications,” said Timo Korpela, general manager of North America for MultiTouch Ltd. “We anticipate that the digital signage and corporate display markets will move toward greater use of multitouch display systems, and we want to shape the way users interact with information displays.”

NanoMarkets estimates that touch-screen displays will grow in market revenue from $2.2 billion USD in 2010 to $3.4 billion in 2014, and that digital signage and computer monitors will account for the fastest-growing segments in this market.

MultiTouch, which was launched in 2007, has developed what is believed to be the largest multitouch display system in the world at the time, for the 2008 CeBit exposition in Hannover, Germany. The 20 foot-by-5-foot display built by q-bus Mediatektur GmbH for Deutsche Telekom enabled users to connect to q-bus’ rendering and database technology in a wall setting and a table-format setting.

“We have seen the multi-user multitouch market expand rapidly from an industrial novelty to an everyday environment that ideally tracks the way individuals interact with information,” said Petri Martikainen, CEO of MultiTouch Ltd. “The North American market is perfectly suited for our solutions, and we look forward to developing meaningful partnerships within the advertising, retail, entertainment, and industrial markets.”

MultiTouch works as both a developer and manufacturer of its LCD-based MultiTouch Cell arrays, and as a licensor of its MultiTouch CornerStone SDK, which delivers run-time libraries and APIs for developing compatible applications on multiple platforms and with multiple programming languages.

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