What Is The Difference Between Capacitive and Resistive?

As we write about mobile technology, we often take for granted that our readers understand the terms that we are using. Even though most of our readers are mobile enthusiasts, that doesn’t necessarily mean everyone understands all of the technology and terms, so from time to time we’ll write some posts explaining the technology terms we use.

Perhaps one of the most important parts of mobile phones, tablet computers, netbooks, and notebooks is the screen. The screen shows us the information that we use these devices to obtain, and in the case of devices with touchscreens, the screens are also how we interact with the device to retrieve information.

In actuality, the term touchscreen is shorthand for what one does (touch the screen), but really isn’t the right term for the screen technology in use. What is called a touchscreen is really a digitizer that translates, or digitizes, where and how the screen is touched, into information that computer programs understand. Rather than provide all the details about the different digitizers in mobile devices, I will direct you to this excellent article written by James Kendrick, the jk part of jkOnTheRun…

Everything You Need To Know About Touchscreen Tablets

Join Baratunde Thurston (left), The Onion’s Director of Digital and author of How to Be Black, for an entertaining look at creative social media campaigns in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. Other speakers include Morin Oluwole (Facebook), Tim Devane (bitly), and SocialTimes' writer Devon Glenn.   Register now.