Look, and please touch.

Illustration courtesy of Esterline, Advance Input Systems.

Museums always post signs up saying "Look, but please don't touch."

But humans want to touch. They want to feel. They don't just want to look. The want the whole shebang - the full experience of something.

We've always been restricted to touch nice things though for fear of damaging high-end goods. And when humans are restricted, what is the first thing they want to do - break that rule.

Enter the touch screen era.

It's allowing humans to touch and connect with the digital era.

It's the tech fad on the rise and the current high-end luxury for the cellphone industry.

If you have a touch screen cellphone, man are you cool. Touch screen is the new must have.

It really became hip to the mainstream with the new iPhone, and now all cellphone carriers are hopping on the bandwagon. The Blackberry Storm has become the second most talked about fad.

Here's the best review I found of the top five touch screen phones.

Jeff Han invented the multi-touch interface design back in 2006 though - it's no new idea.

And Nokia released a touch phone shortly after - Apple wasn't the first innovator.

Touch screen's been on the rise, finally hit popularity and soon will be an old fad that everyone is used to in no time.

People have even started to integrate touch technology with outdated systems. Check out this 1942 Philco radio that a touch screen Mac-mini was built into.

Touchscreens.com also allows you to add touch screen capabilities to outdated computers.

The iPod Touch is the most famous example of touch screen music players.


Smartboards are the leading touch educational tools in classrooms, so teachers don't have to mess with computers hooked up to projectors.

TVs are the next big hit in the touch screen era. CNN used one during the presidential election.

With televisions sets mandated to go digital soon, every household will have an interactive television set. I thought this NYT article was pretty interesting and could support the idea of touch being the future of TV sets to engage audiences.

What's next to go along with touch TVs? How about this $10,000 touch coffee table?