Surprising not many technology companies thought of this before, but with touchscreen gaining mainstream acceptance, Redmond has jumped in and started work on a new technology that supposedly keeps harmful bacteria inside.
It was only about time, as the touchscreens are becoming extremely popular these days.
Microsoft has filed a patient for antibacterial touchscreens, and according to details is apparently getting closer to release a unit soon.
Inner working details of the technology, you ask? Microsoft plans to use the UV light in order to disinfect fingerprints as the user touches the screen of the device — whether it is a tablet, laptop or smartphone.
Here are some details from the patent that briefly describes this new technology:
“A UV and visible light transparent film material is secured onto or within a touch-based screen to automatically disinfect the external surface. UV light is emitted from a UV light source into an edge of the transparent film material in order to transfer the UV light through the transparent film material while remaining in the transparent film material through total internal reflection effect.
Some UV light exits the transparent film material at points of contact to disinfect fingertips and immediate surrounding areas through the frustrated total internal reflection effect.”
Redmond is obviously hard at work expanding its hardware offerings, and a technology like this could turn out to be a major advantage of its future hardware lineup.
And if the company decides to include this technology in its newer tablets (and potentially, smartphones), how this impacts the overall price of these touchscreens could be a big issue — an antibacterial touchscreen could very likely be an expensive affair.
