How does a touch screen work?
Moment of Um
American Public Media
4.4 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 26 January 2024
⏱️ 5 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Cell phones and tablets are like portals into other worlds. You can play games, take photos, read books – all with just the tap of a finger! But how do touch screens work? We asked mechanical engineer and science educator Tiffani Teachey to help us find the answer.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From the brains behind brains on, this is the moment of um. Moment of um. I'm Terry Tarantino and I love touching stuff. |
| 0:15.0 | You could say touching things is my own personal mission in life. |
| 0:24.0 | That fuzzy pink pillow at the department store, |
| 0:27.5 | touch. |
| 0:28.4 | The shiny wooden banister along the staircase. |
| 0:32.2 | Touch, my pet rat Steve. banister along the staircase. Touch. |
| 0:33.2 | My pet rat Steve? |
| 0:34.8 | Oh, definitely touch. |
| 0:37.8 | Sometimes you touch something and you think it's gonna feel one way |
| 0:41.4 | and then it feels a totally different way. Like just last week I touched |
| 0:46.8 | a big wad of gum stuck under my chair. I thought it was going to be soft and sticky, but it was all dried up and hard. |
| 0:56.0 | Ugh, would not recommend. |
| 0:59.0 | Anyway, one of my absolute favorite things to touch are screens and not just any screens. |
| 1:06.6 | I'm talking about touch screens on cell phones and tablets. |
| 1:11.0 | You just give them a little tap and suddenly the screen and You can listen to music, play games, even read books. |
| 1:25.0 | But how exactly does a touch screen work? |
| 1:28.5 | Like, how does it know what your finger is telling it to do. |
| 1:32.6 | My buddy, Neeve, was wondering the same thing. |
| 1:37.6 | Hi, I'm Neeve and I'm from Sydney, Australia, |
| 1:39.8 | and I was wondering how to touch screens work. |
| 1:46.0 | How to touch screens works. |
| 1:47.6 | Well, touch screens are like magic. |
... |
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