Chrome TouchBot: Google’s badass automated way to test touchscreen lag

As an engineer, my version of pornography is a well-oiled automation system that performs its tasks with precision and efficiency. This put me in a very compromising position when I first read about Google’s Chrome TouchBot today, an automation system created by automation specialists OptoFidelity, that Google is using to quantify and improve their touchscreen accuracy and response times (or screen latency, as many will know it) on Android and Chrome OS devices. If you think your touchscreen gets pretty much instant input from your finger when you touch your screen, think again – check out this video of the system in action, testing several Nexus devices:

As you can see from the slow-mo parts of the video, the response of the display relative to the simulated finger is actually slow, noticeable so at this frame rate. Obviously we don’t notice much in real-time, but it does show that if improvements are made (and Chrome TouchBot makes it entirely possible), then we’ll be getting that much closer to instant input and response on our smart devices – you can even try out the TouchBot code yourself as Google has made it available on Chromium. Exciting times we live it.

What do you think about Google’s Chrome TouchBot automation system? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Source: Google+ via engadget