Devices that supported stylus inputs were a dime a dozen before 2007 when the original iPhone came out. Apple’s first iPhone revolutionized the industry, with manufacturers rushing to make devices that had multi-touch supporting displays. Samsung revived the stylus with their Galaxy Note series of devices, they come with an integrated digitized and an active stylus. NVIDIA has shown off a new technology for Tegra 4 tablets it calls ‘DirectStylus.’ It allows users to use a fine-tip passive stylus to draw lines of different width on a tablet’s screen.
Active styluses, like the ones Samsung gives with Galaxy Note devices, normally require a digitizer. Passive styluses don’t, but they do have tips as big as 5mm. Harnessing the Tegra 4 GPU’s image processing power, the tablet will be able to recognize difference between a stylus, an eraser, a palm and a finger. This will allow users to write on the tablet’s screen using a simple passive pen and use its opposite end as an eraser. DirectStylus is aided by NVIDIA’s Direct Touch 2.0 technology that is capable of supporting 300 scans per second, allowing capture of detailed stylus movements.