InPlay Technologies Introduces Revolutionary Capacitive Pen Technology

  
    
  
  
    
      InPlay Technologies (NASDAQ: NPLA) today unveiled its patent-pending 
      WriteSense™ digital pen technology, coupling active RF pen input with 
      capacitive touch systems. WriteSense eliminates the need for a separate 
      electromagnetic digitizer by communicating directly with the capacitive 
      touch sensor, resulting in a smaller three-dimensional form factor and a 
      cost-effective solution.
    
    
      Popularized by the iPhone, capacitive touch technology enables many 
      advanced features over other types of touch input. However, it is 
      limited in that it requires a finger’s ability to provide capacitive 
      coupling to interact with the screen. The traditional stylus will not 
      work with a capacitive screen. Nor will fingernails, or even use with 
      gloves, causing frustration to users.
    
    
      Working with InPlay, OEMs can integrate WriteSense into the existing 
      capacitive touch architecture already being adopted for mobile devices. 
      The active digital pen enables the precision, accuracy and speed of pen 
      input, and the ability for advanced features based on InPlay’s unique 
      digital architecture. Unlike most pen input systems that utilize analog 
      communication, InPlay technology uses digital stream communication, 
      bringing stronger performance and enhanced feature capability.
    
    
      “Our new technology enables active pen capability at an incremental cost 
      when capacitive touch systems are used,” said Van Potter, InPlay 
      president and CEO. “We believe that our technology could be rapidly 
      adopted in the tablet PC and e-reader markets. We are also seeing strong 
      interest from the Smart phone segment.”
    
    
      In a recent report, ABI Research forecasts global revenue for 
      touchscreens in Smart phones and other mobile devices to reach $5 
      billion in 2009. The report notes a significant opportunity in Asia for 
      touchscreens that support handwriting recognition using a stylus because 
      of the character alphabet used in the region. Resistive touch 
      technology, along with an active pen or passive stylus, currently 
      dominates this market. OEMs prefer the gesture and multi-touch features 
      capacitive pen technology offers in mobile applications, but where 
      handwriting recognition is required, they are forced to use resistive 
      technology in small form factor applications or the more complex and 
      costly traditional digitizer for larger applications such as tablets and 
      notebooks.
    
    
      “WriteSense eliminates the cost and performance barriers to integrated 
      capacitive touch and pen in all these applications,” Potter continued. 
      “Target applications also include integration into track pads.”
    
    
      WriteSense advantages:
    
    
      
        No additional ITO or glass layers required, resulting in high optical 
        performance
      
      
        Low-cost integration and thin stack-up by eliminating the digitizer 
        behind the LCD or a specially configured LCD
      
      
        Active RF pen enables high-resolution pen capability, gesture support
      
      
        Digital architecture allows for feature expansion
      
      
        Low power, battery free
      
      
        Simple supply chain, standard components
      
    
    
      InPlay has demonstrated prototypes of WriteSense to various OEMs and 
      strategic partners. WriteSense will be commercially available mid-2009.
    
    
      About InPlay Technologies
    
    
      InPlay Technologies is a developer of innovative human interface devices 
      for computing and communication products. Our mission is to help make 
      complex products easy and intuitive to use by providing a natural method 
      of interaction. InPlay’s integrated digital pen and touch technologies 
      automatically recognize pen or finger input, allowing the user to choose 
      the most effective input method. With the only digital-communication 
      based pen input system, our products offer significant advantages over 
      traditional analog designs. Like the evolution of cell phones from 
      analog to digital, our roadmap enables an increasing number of useful 
      features and functionality for computers, Smart phones and other 
      electronic products. Visit www.inplaytechnologies.com 
      for more information.
    
    
      This news release contains certain “forward-looking statements” within 
      the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E 
      of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These 
      forward-looking statements include statements regarding potential 
      adoption of our technologies in the tablet PC, Smart phone and other 
      markets, and estimations of cost and performance advantages. Risks and 
      uncertainties that could cause results to differ materially from those 
      projected include lack of market acceptance of our products, 
      insufficient resources to successfully commercialize our technology and 
      other uncertainties described from time to time in our documents filed 
      with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our Annual Report 
      on Form 10-KSB for the year ended December 31, 2007 as filed with the 
      Securities and Exchange Commission on March 24, 2008. These 
      forward-looking statements represent our beliefs as of the date of this 
      press release and we disclaim any intent or obligation to update these 
      forward-looking statements.