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Touchscreens or a touchscreen is described as a screen that uses pressure to detect the location and presence of a touch within the area of display. Many objects can be used in order to activate the ‘touch’ the most common being a finger or hand. Other objects such as a stylus or light pen are becoming more popular in their marketplace.

Back in the day most touchscreens were limited by only being able to detect one point of contact at a time & very few could tell the degree of pressure applied to the touch. This started to change when touch screens started to gain momentum in the commercial marketplace.

Two main attributes govern a touch screen monitor, the first is interaction - being able to touch information directly displayed on the screen at the actual point it is shown as opposed to using an indirect object such as a mouse. The second is functionality and accessibility as the only object that’s needed to access the touch screen information is a part of your body, usually a hand or finger.

Touchscreens came from research labs in the early 70’s mainly used for computer assisted learning terminals. More recently we see touchscreens most commonly used in systems that contain kiosks in iundustries such as gaming and retail on point of sale systems (POS), Cash machines, PDA’s and gaming consoles. Touchscreens are also used frequently in industry such as supply lines in factories & touch screen displays used in shopping centres.

History of EPOS technology

Before the evolution of epos systems, merchants relied on cash operated registers to tally their sales. Prices were manually punched in and totaled by cashiers and inventory records were kept by hand. The cashiers notes were then transcribed into an accounting ledger to keep track of finances. Inventory was managed by physically counting items in storage and carefully writing down every item purchased and sold.

It was not until 1986 that IBM introduced its first computer based EPOS system. Manufacturers developed credit card devices that were integrated into a companys EPOS system. While these devices seem relatively simple in nature, they eventually evolved to handle ever-increasing demands. Registers are now multi-function and can be used for employees to clock in, for age verification and gift card activation. They can also be used for charging credit cards.

Recently, EPOS made a significant leap with enhanced capability and total compatibility with other electronic management tools. Initially, it was too difficult to transfer data between manufacturers or even other cash registers. There was no portal that allowed a smooth transfer of information between different EPOS systems and software. However, it is now the norm for all EPOS terminals to be operated by Windows based programs.

Benefits and uses of EPOS systems

While cash management is one of the main components of EPOS systems technology, these systems now employ a wide variety of functions. They are used for inventory management, service management, customer relation management and even payroll modules. In fact, they are sometimes referred to as retail management software because of the absolute integration between business management and technology in the last twenty years.

A manager can, at any given time, access the necessary figures from the EPOS system, including total income, net income, the amount that needs to go to the government for taxes, number of items of any particular piece of merchandise that was sold, the number of units that should still remain in storage, and what products need to be reordered. In addition to those figures, electronic point of sales systems also assist in the accuracy of pricing and inventory and help reduce theft and stock shrinkage.

EPOS Effectiveness

Without an EPOS, many retail stores would find it simply impossible to handle the day to day cash management and inventory requirements.

The advent of EPOS and its integration with financial and inventory control has given businesses the insight and effectiveness to manage their products, control inventory and keep abreast of their business operations.

The LG Viewty has been equipped with a 3-inch 262,144 colour touchscreen monitor. Average colour reproduction is fine. When a colorful object is captured, the colours are not well rendered on the monitor at times. In bright sunlight it is difficult to see clearly what is on the monitor. In this case you will have to go into the shadow or create some shade yourself. The touchscreen monitor responds very well.

The user interface has been fairly well thought through. Four trappable icons at the bottom of the Home screen let you get to messaging, contacts, the dial pad and the main menu of the phone.

The design of the Viewty isn’t that different from the Prada phone as both have only three buttons on the front and a rather large LCD display. The UI also shares several common aspects with the Prada phone, but the two are quite different. For starters, the Viewty is quite a bit larger at 103.5 x 54.4 x 14.8 compared to the Prada phone, and it weighs 27g more at 112g. It’s still quite pocket friendly by all means, especially compared to many Windows Mobile devices which it is competing against in terms of what’s on offer.

Viewing your pictures is almost as good as having your prints in your hand especially when using the landscape setting. Images can be viewed either as standard thumbnail or scattered around the screen which is quite snazzy. You can also zoom in and move your pictures around by brushing your finger over it which means you don’t miss any detail.

There is a comprehensive editing suite for images and video footage and the software included is easy to install and use which also allows you back up all you phones data. There is also a music player and FM radio. The web browser is easy to use and allows you to see full web pages and then to zoom. You can even open up two windows at once and toggle between the two. Battery life can be short if you find yourself playing with all the features – if using the camera on a day or night out, browsing the web and viewing images you will need your charger every couple of days.

Key features

* Tri-band GSM/GPRS plus HSDPA support

* 5 megapixel auto focus camera with image stabilization

* Camera strobe flash and focus assist beam

* Secondary video camera for video calls

* 3″ 262K color TFT touchscreen display with 240×400 pixels resolution

* VGA video recording at 30 fps

* QVGA video recording at 120 fps

* TV-out support

* Original stylus dongle

* DivX video playback

* Haptic feedback when the screen is pressed

Main disadvantages

* No hot-swap memory card capability

* Having stylus as a dongle is an inconvenient solution

* File management slows once the memory card starts filling up

* Operating the zooming jog wheel gets in the way of the lens

Choosing a good point of sale system is one of the most important aspects of a new or existing business. A good point of sale system can help you serve your customers better and more effectively, helps with inventory and bookeeping, can give you valuable reporting features and streamline the checkout process.Do you use credit cards? A POS system can integrate that as well and can totally eliminate the terminal fees you are used to paying for.

A typical point of sale system consists of, the register computer, monitor, cash drawer, bar code scanner, receipt printer, mag strip reader, and pole display ( for retail establishments). Touch screen monitors are growing in popularity, making it easier by just having to touch the screen for what you want instead of having to remember keyboard keys or use a mouse.

The POS Software is a just as important item as the pos hardware. The pos software should be able to maintain an unlimited number of products in the database. It should work with or without a barcode, set price levels by customer, quantity or promotion, be compatible with regular monitors as well as touchscreen displays, run sales and inventory reports, support integration of data files, manage receivables, and one of the most important for your employee benefits is to be easy to learn and use.

When setting up your pos equipment, you need a basic network. All you need for an ethernet type network is Cat5 cabling to each register that plugs into a network switch ( I don’t recommend using a hub) or if you need internet access for cc processing you can use a router, but you may still need the switch as well. I also recommend that you have a back office computer that runs the same software. The reason for that is so you as a manager can check reports, do the accounting, receivables, etc all from the back office and you don’t have to interrupt operations on the sales floor. In the back office, you should have all the network cabling connecting into the switch/router (preferrably everything labeled as well), you’ll also have your dsl/broadband modem if you are using one and I would also highly recommend a backup power supply, UPS, and a network attached storage device , NAS, for backing up your data. Backups are extremely important! One other option that is becoming increasingly popular is video security such as IP video (network video) which allows you to be able to view your store from anywhere where internet access is available and the video quality is much better than the older analog cctv type video and with the proper software you can record, pause, zoom, rewind,etc. Once all this is setup your business should be streamlined and ready to go. Feel free to contact me for any additional information or advice or visit my website at www.hivelocitynetworks.com