3M had demonstrated at Vegas few weeks ago what seem to be capacitive touchscreens with tiny bezels, and 10 times faster responsiveness compared to what we have in the market today. By using silver as its conducting material, the company says that it has made it possible to shrink the circuits at the edge of a touch panel by a whole order of magnitude, resulting in finger-friendly screens unhampered by bulky bezels.

Moreover, due to silver’s high conductivity, the response times of the panel have been said to dip down as low as 6ms, which is ten times speedier than the currently used Indium Tin Oxide stuff. Thought neither both advancement is revolutionary today, as bezels merely serve a purpose in providing a gripping surface for slate devices. What’s more, touch responsiveness is currently constrained by software lag more than hardware capabilities. The company said that the bezels should be ready for the market by 2012. Hopefully the world hasn’t ended yet by then.

SOURCE via Extremetech