What are "touch panels" and what can they do?

What are "touch panels" and what can they do?

Jeff Colen (President, A Sharper Home, Inc.) gives expert video advice on: What one component should I not skimp on and why?; How are people using media in their homes?; What types of control systems are becoming popular? and more...

The latest thing that we're selling a lot of are touch panels. Remote controls typically are one way - press a button and something happens. But there's very little feedback that comes back to the remote control saying this is the channel that I'm on or the tv is on or off, or this is why we're watching it. It's sort of sends the command and you hope that everything is working.The latest, or the thing we are selling a lot more of, is the two-way touch panel interfaces where I cant not only turn the lights on and off, but I can also see the lights at sixty percent. I can adjust it in real time up and down. I can do things like bring up video surveilance cameras. I can move them around on the screen and they will move as I move my finger around on the screen. So those are sort of the newer technologies that the price has gotten to the point where people are buying them and putting them in their houses.