At Computex 2013 in Taipei, Taiwan today, Nvidia showed off DirectStylus. This technology, powered by company's Tegra 4 processor, allows mobile devices to make better use of passive (i.e. cheaper) styluses. Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang showed the tech off on-stage by writing his name using Chinese characters on a Tegra 4-based mobile device.
Detailed on the Nvidia blog, DirectStylus uses the Tegra 4's GPU to analyze data from standard touch sensors and recognize when the screen is touched by a stylus, your finger, a stylus eraser and your palm. Essentially, users can interact with Tegra 4-based mobile devices with any old stylus, and the gadget will know the difference through DirectStylus.
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Better yet, this technology also allows Tegra 4 GPUs to recognize pressure, meaning users can draw lines of varying width based on the pressure applied with the stylus--no software required. Nvidia says that styluses with this capability require dedicated digitizers and cost at least $20. If anything, this is one more bullet point for the incoming onslaught of Tegra 4-powered Android devices.
