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Buttons That Morph Out of Your Touchscreen
kkleiner writes "Wouldn't it be awesome if our tablets and smartphones could have buttons that morphed out of the touchscreen, and then went away again when we didn't need them? It sounds like magic, but now it is reality. Created by Tactus Technology, a Fremont, California-based start-up, Tactus is a deformable layer that sits on top of a touchscreen sensor and display. 'The layer is about 0.75mm to 1mm thick, and at its top sits a deformable, clear layer 200 nm thick. Beneath the clear layer a fluid travels through micro-channels and is pushed up through tiny holes, deforming the clear layer to create buttons or shapes. The buttons or patterns remain for however long they are needed, just for a few seconds or for hours when you’re using your iPad to write that novel. And because the fluid is trapped inside the buttons, they can remain for however long without additional power consumption. They come or go pretty quickly, taking only a second to form or disappear.'"
Assuming that it could also be used to display Braille, rhis tech could probably be rather useful for tablet computers and ebook readers for the blind.
I agree, it looks a tad ugly. Though so did the first UIs for operating systems, and the first of a lot of other things. The first ipod looks fugly now!
However, think of all the visually impaired people who'd benefit from this, being able to introduce a dynamic braille would help a lot of people I'm sure. Just because you don't like it in blue doesn't mean everyone else will hate it too or find no benefit to the practical use, even if it doesn't look like the ritz of technology.
... unless they can come up with a way to raise them based on a fine grid array rather than fixed cell sizes. Then it would be a truly useful technology.
Until then, I am sure a company or two will see this useful for raising a telephone keypad above the rest of the display, for example. I don't see it as more finely-controlled than that, because the screens of different devices differ so much.
Unless it were made into a grid array, it could never be a standard. For long.
They don't look cheap nor cheesy to me. The buttons in the demos simply don't look like keys on a keyboard, which is apparently the comparison you are making. The buttons demonstrated may not be the only form they can take. Tactus has a photo of a "remote" that appears to have squared angular buttons. Regardless, you are dismissing the primary reason for having the pseudo-buttons in favor of a rather shallow and pretentious one based on appearance. The purpose of the buttons isn't to look slick, it's to provide the otherwise absent tactile response.
Now this means when I break my phone I can't use the cracked screen anymore.
Talk about whining for the sake of whining...
According to TFA the top layer is flexible, so for all we know these screens might be a more durable alternative in the future? It's too early to tell for sure, but something like this is more or less the holy grail of dynamically configurable user interfaces. I hope they make it work.
.: Max Romantschuk
One area this could be a huge benefit would be in-car touchscreens. Right now, the massive rush to touchscreens in cars mean that driving interfaces are suddenly much less safe. They REQUIRE you to use your eyes to locate a region on the screen, and so it diverts your attention away from the road. A tactile touch screen would allow a flexible display to be operated by feel alone, a big safety improvement.
Started the video in TFA:
"For years, people believed the world was flat...".
Stop, close page. Great idea, ridiculous marketing.
It strikes me you can only get tactile response if you touch them, and if you touch a touchscreen, you've operated it.
I wonder what the answer to this issue is.
Well, in a way, it already is. This is basically a touch screen having an erection.
Ezekiel 23:20
They seem to have addressed the issue of the third dimension, but that's only one part of what makes a button a button. Does it "click"? Is there tactile feedback? Or does a single 'brush' of a fingertip across a raised button trigger the interaction?
Buttons aren't just lumps. They're clickable, and they need to offer resistance and then "give way" in order to constitute touch feedback. I'm not seeing that here,
last i heard, using an iphone while you are blind is pretty annoying.
That's the thing people forget about hardness is that it is a double edged sword. So they are right in their marketing that Gorilla Glass, and others like it, are very hard. So they are difficult to scratch and so on. Sounds strong... However what it really means is they are brittle. They have a higher failure point, but when they do fail they break pretty badly. For real strength, some flexibility, give, is what you actually want.
An area where you can see this is knives. Far and away most quality knives are steel, including those made for adverse environments. However a bit of research turns up that you can get advanced ceramic knives. They are much tougher, they don't need sharpening basically ever, and they are real easy to clean. Why then are these not the exclusive knives in all high end kitchens? For that matter, why aren't they the knives of choice whenever you can afford it (they are expensive)?
The reason is they are brittle, they don't bend. So they are "stronger" than steel in a sense, in that you put pressure on them that would cause a steel knife to flex and they hold fast. However you increase the pressure to a point and then they just fail, shatter, whereas the steel knife would still bend, and then come back. So they are brilliant for cutting vegetables, meats with no bones, and so on but they aren't going to replace your carving knife.
Same shit with phone screens. Ya the move from plastic to glass means that they are more resistant to minor scratches. However hard impacts, a proper plastic will do a better job of handling.