Slashdot Mirror
Textured Tactile Touchscreens
HizookRobotics writes "A new covering developed by Senseg and Toshiba Information Systems gives touchpads, LCDs, and other curved surfaces (eg. cellphones) programmable texture using a high-resolution electrotactile array — a grid of electrodes that excite nerves in the skin with small pulses of current to trick the body into perceiving texture, pressure, or pin-pricks depending on the current amplitude and electrode resolution. The new covering has many potential applications: interactive gaming, touchscreens with texture, robot interfaces, etc."
There's a new way to present the user with error messages!
There's an app for that too now.
Nullius in verba
...to say that I'm looking forward to condoms and/or sex toys using this marvelous innovation!
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
It would be nice if this could be developed into a way to simulate a keyboard on a touchscreen. All these multitouch devices are great to use, but it can be a pain to type on them, so a way to give tactile feedback on what is a key vs two keys, would help a lot.
... the Rule 34 implementation of this.
Have gnu, will travel.
Reminds me of the Star Trek Voyager episode Year Of Hell, where at one point a blinded tactical officer takes his station and activates some form of tactile interface.
In other news, the porn industry just announced a press conference to announce a product that will change the way you "feel" about porn!
Track your TV Shows with your iPhone - FREE
Two marvelous, round and soft interfaces.
It sounds like this could be used for a braille interface, I wonder if a braille interface that can change on the fly would ultimately be beneficial or prove confusing though...
And it will recharge your pacemaker too
"Perceiving texture" means the texture of you-know-what, you-know-where.
-kgj
First they'll have to think about the best way to add a braille interface to a fly.
We'd have to ask a blind person to try it out to get the answer I suppose.
---- I am certain of only one thing : I know nothing else.
Maybe I'm in a minority, but I already feel an odd sensation of "pain" when I use that odd textured (array of bumps?) on some netbook touchpads. It's a weird radiating electrical buzz feeling up and into my wrist when I slide my finger across it. I know there is no pain and it's just an odd nerve interpretation, but it exists for me none-the-less. I'd hate to use something like that on a regular basis and it sounds like they are trying to replicate that exact feeling on touch devices. No thank you!
Tremendous Triumph: Textured Tactile Touchscreens Touted To Totally Transform Technology
"Going to war without the French is like going deer hunting without your accordion." ~General Norman Schwarzkopf
There have been moving Braille output devices in the past. They were used in the days of text terminals. One can be seen in the movie Sneakers.
puts her phone on her chest, and I then feel... ...Happy.
Now -that's- an app. I-Nips.
Wow, this story JUST appeared in my RSS feeds, and out of the 20 or so commetns on the story so far, I am the 4th or 5th to suggest that the Porn industry will love this!
Real Doll (TM)(R).
The biggest disadvantage of touchscreen virtual keyboards for me is that I have to look at them. On physical keys I can go by feel and muscle-memory lets me go much faster. Sounds like this could bridge that gap.
It set my pacemaker to hummingbird!!!
and right now on Covert Affairs
this device support massive amounts of porn and who's job is it to map out a sheeps vagina into a matrix of texture values? Surely most members of this site are both well qualified for the technical challenges and the testing.
also see the new show on USA Covert Affairs for current tech for the blind.
First they'll have to think about the best way to add a braille interface to a fly.
I'm sure they'll have no trouble finding people willing to test a braille interface on their crotch.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
Good idea. An ereader with braille would be pretty cool.
There have been moving Braille output devices in the past. They were used in the days of text terminals. One can be seen in the movie Sneakers.
You're not thinking hard enough. Think of GUI interfaces with textured window outlines and braille fonts on window titles, window gadgets, and so on. A solution would have to be found to the hover problem, but a foot switch or foot click-enable pedal (or noise-based clicking, or, or, or...) would solve that nicely. Right now if you want to use a GUI you have to use a screen reader. You can use it in concert with a braille output device but that's not the same thing as having one device to work with so you don't need one hand on the pointing device, one hand on the reader, and a third hand for the keyboard. There are numerous mice with haptic feedback and adding vibration to a touchpad ought to be an exercise in triviality (there might be some de-jittering needed but otherwise it's a fairly well-solved problem) so there are already numerous ways the blind might apprehend a GUI. Though, I admit, I have not at all kept up with what the blind are using in specifics since the text-only days...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
a grid of electrodes that excite nerves in the skin with small pulses of current to trick the body into perceiving texture, pressure, or pin-pricks depending on the current amplitude and electrode resolution.
Am I the only here imagining some malware creator cackling as he tries to figure a way to deliver as much current as the battery can pump with a single touch of the screen once his virus gets downloaded?
Drop dead, evil-doers!
It's also not hard to see games where masturbation or stimulation are required.
But who's to say you can't improve on the feeling of the vaginal wall through technology?
You think they might remake American Pie with an iPhone then?
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
ADA - Braille ?
Logitech couldn't manage to sell the "iFeel" mouse, back in 2000 which does make you "feel" the underlying objects on desktop. I have one, hardware still works. They are a huge name in input devices with a huge prestige. People still didn't buy the idea.
http://www.logitech.com/en-us/172/1183 -->press release.
Who came up with this electrocute user idea? Doesn't Toshiba guys have anything else to do like, make use of the freaking Cell chip they invested billions in?
A solution would have to be found to the hover problem, but a foot switch or foot click-enable pedal (or noise-based clicking, or, or, or...) would solve that nicely.
What about instead of just detecting a change in the capacitance at a particular point in the screen, detect how much it changes by. I'm thinking that the values would be different whether you were using your single finger, or if you had your thumb placed at a joint.
Essentially, the blind could use their finger as their "eyes" (as they do today), and their thumb could toggle the "mouse button" that is the first joint in their index finger.
I think it'd be fairly intuitive too, as if physically grabbing hold of some element of the display (especially for drag'n'drop, where you'd be doing just that, dragging the item across the screen and dropping it by letting go of your finger).
It would be just like light-pens back in the day.
First they'll have to think about the best way to add a braille interface to a fly.
I'm sure they'll have no trouble finding people willing to test a braille interface on their crotch.
I mean, just think of the pickup lines!
Finally, literally, the blue screen of death. Undertakers! Undertakers! Undertakers!
Say hello to my little sig.
I don't want little zaps simulating texture. What I want is an electrically activated memory plastic screen that pops up (and releases down) little bumps under software control where the lines drawn on the GUI appear on the screen. Some raised textures on buttons and other GUI widgets. So I can feel where I'm touching, just as I can see where the widgets are. The hard part is making it all transparent, but that's it.
--
make install -not war
Ouch!
I have multiple handheld electronic devices that do this when charging. Not on the screen admittedly, but It actually feels like the case is really rough.
Should be good for making touch based devices more accessible to blind / partially sighted people.
- Dan
This is a way to make a panoramic view touchable.
Imagine a thin suit that has this on the inside, and that projects a processed presentation of the environment on the body of the wearer. You would feel the car coming from behind before it hit you. :)
(Yes, I wrote on this before.)
I don't know about you, but I just thought of a whole new dimension in spell-checking...
Make typos painful!
This post © Copyrite Duggeek, all rights reversed.
.. have hacked the latest model of taciphone, the iDomine. The hack is reported to make the phones feel like a large phallus. Senior Correspondent Mudkipz Akronym has more...