George Samuel Hurst – The touch screen that we often know as a touch screen is a device that works by touching the screen display using a finger or digital pen. A touch screen interface is a way for users to operate a computer system by touching images or writing on the screen itself. It is the easiest way to operate computers and smartphones and is now increasingly being used in various applications. But have you ever tried to find out, Who invented the Touchscreen?
Quoted on the Wikipedia.org page, George Samuel Hurst was born on October 13 1927 in Bell Country Kentucky, United States, and was the first inventor of touch screen technology. Sam (George Samuel Hurst’s nickname) is a physicist who writes many papers on technical and physical sciences. At the age of 15, young Sam studied at Berea College and received a BA degree in physics in 1946. Then young Sam continued his education at the University of Kentucky and received an MS degree in Physics in 1948. In that year Sam joined the Oak Research Center Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) as a researcher in the Health Physics division.
Sam made many breakthroughs and contributed greatly to the world of health physics, especially neutron dosimetry and spectroscopy. Sam then continued his education to obtain a PhD in 1959 at the University of Tennessee. In the late 1960s Sam served as professor of physics at the University of Kentucky. In early 1974 Sam began experimenting with creating a touchscreen. Sam collaborates with a developer called Elographics. In 1977 the touchscreen was developed and patented with 5 wire resistive technology, which is the most popular touchscreen technology used today.
In 1983 the HP-150 computer was the first computer in the world to use touchscreen technology invented by Sam. Of course, it still only receives signals via infrared and is surrounded by transmitters around the computer which are able to detect the position of every non-transparent object on the screen (such as an ATM machine). In 1994 the IBM computer company officially launched the first smart phone with touchscreen technology called the IBM Simon Personal Communicator. . Gradually, from year to year, touchscreen technology continues to be developed until now. And the inventor died on July 4 2010 at the age of 83 years. Even though the inventor has died, his work is still enjoyed by many people around the world and continues to be developed.
