A number of OEMs, stylus and touch controller makers announce the Universal Stylus Initiative (USI), an organisation with the aim of developing and promoting an industry specification for an active stylus.
USI founding members include Atmel, Hanvon, Intel, Lenovo, Sharp, Synaptics, Wacom, and Waltop (at the Promoter level), as well as Dell, eGalax_eMPIA, Elan and Focal Tech (at the Contributor level).
The organization's plan is to create a cross-platform stylus standard allowing for seamless communications between active styluses and touch-enabled devices from multiple vendors. It hopes to publish an initial USI specification by Q2 2015.
The specification includes the means by which styluses communicate with devices and provide information such as stylus pressure levels, button presses and erasing, among other features.
“The market has sorely been needing a universal communication standard for active stylus,” Jon Peddie Research says. “To date the market has been limited by proprietary touch controller-stylus solutions, which limits OEM choices and cost reductions. With the USI specification released, we expect that the capacitive active stylus market will grow from 100 million units in 2015 to 300 million units in 2018, opening up new markets such as smartphones and all-in-one PCs.”
Go USI Launched to Create a Specification for an Active Stylus
