NVIDIA announces DirectTouch for Tegra3 devices, promises smoother touchscreen experiences

During their CES presentation today NVIDIA introduced a new technology: DirectTouch. Exclusive to Tegra3 devices, DirectTouch will utilize the low-power 5th core to create a smoother, more responsive touchscreen experience.

While Ice Cream Sandwich has brought the smoothest touch and scrolling experience yet to Android, in the end Android still processes some interface interactions in the same CPU stack as the rest of the operating system, which once in a while leads to a lag between a touch input and response. If DirectTouch can reduce or eliminate that by offloading some of the touchscreen computation to the low-power 5th core, NVIDIA might have a real differentiator on its hands.

The presentation demo (which we liveblogged) looked convincing, but that’s exactly what demos are supposed to do. According to NVIDIA's website, utilizing the free core for DirectTouch speeds up touch processing by 6x, in addition to lowering the amount of energy used.

Better interaction and lower battery usage? Yes please! With the Transformer Prime getting ICS today, we should be seeing the fruits of NVIDIA's labors in the very near future...

source: NVIDIA

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