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Just in case you didn't get the hint from the tablet-tastic Windows 8 Metro UI and those 900,000 Android devices activated each and every day: the world is turning into an increasingly touch-focused place. Touchscreens are nice and all, but we prefer our QWERTY to be a little more… tactile. Enter the appropriately named Tactus Technology: while most of our attention was focused on E3 and Computex last week, Tactus stole the show at the Society for Information Display's (SID) conference in Boston with new technology that can create dynamic physical buttons over a touchscreen display on-demand.
According to the white paper Tactus reps sent us, the multi-layered Tactus display technology sits on top of a device's touch sensors and has "micro channels" comprised of multiple tiny holes in predetermined locations; when physical buttons are needed, an optically clear fluid rises up from a lower layer of the Tactus sheet to fill the holes and create the on-demand physical interface. When physical buttons aren't needed, the fluid exits and the display flattens back out, as you can see in the video below.
Tactus claims the technology doesn't add any additional thickness to the touchscreen, as the 0.75mm to 1mm Tactus display replaces the topmost layer of glass or plastic found in current touchscreens. The buttons raise and lower in less than a second. Buttons of virtually any shape and varying heights can be created with the technology, but given its design, the buttons will be limited to whichever keys OEMs choose to include, such as the numeric dialer and QWERTY keypad found in phones.
The company also claims that the morphing display uses very little additional energy, as it only draws power when altering the fluid pressure to initially raise or lower a button. By contrast, vibrating haptic displays suck down juice whenever a button is pressed.
Tactus showed off a prototype of the morphing touchscreen display on an Android tablet at SID and Engadget got its hands on the goodie, proclaiming it to be "truly impressive" despite giving the display a look that's "a mash-up of matte and glossy."
The first Tactus technology-enabled devices aren't expected to ship until next year, but we gotta say, the idea of a Windows 8 tablet or AIO with a dynamic, on-demand tactile keyboard is definitely intriguing. What do you think?
Comments are closed on this article
wallaces
June 12, 2012 at 9:12pm
like Arthur replied I am shocked that a student able to earn $9035 in four weeks on the internet. have you seen this web link N u tt y R i ch d o t c o m
Zoandar
June 12, 2012 at 8:24am
Why is it that some people just can't seem to speak at a constantly discernible volume? This guy in the video keeps "trailing off" quieter and quieter each time he starts a sentence until one has to turn up the volume on their device to the max just to hear him. Then they are blasted away by the overly loud music at the end of the video.
winmaster
June 11, 2012 at 7:58pm
I could see this being useful for typing on a touch screen the right way--asdfjkl;.
Lord of Hyrule
June 11, 2012 at 5:25pm
R U freakin kidding me!
buttons on a touch screen, defeats the whole purpose.
You wanna press something get a regular phone or as one person suggested the sliding keyboard type.The next innovation is a method to remove the cell phone altogether...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ODIxSq9mbs
this clip sums it up....but it makes me wonder, how does this new technology handle boobie sites :)...ok, maybe i'd get one
Neufeldt2002
June 11, 2012 at 1:26pm
I think they are going in the right direction, but I would shift focus to the blind. I think this could give the blind a real alternative to whats out there now.
Typo91
June 11, 2012 at 2:08pm
Moore's Law can NEVER FAIL!!!! we'll just move into sub-atomic CPUs, or CPUs have something other then transistors thats performance is measured as if it did... like a new an improved transistor that somehow works like as if it was 10,000.
Tyger
June 11, 2012 at 12:44pm
Sorry, still prefer a slider, and there are a lot of folks like me. Don't really understand why they don't make more of 'em. Every time a decent one comes out, it sells out and is hard for the carriers to keep in stock....does that tell the manufacturers nothing?
kamikaji
June 11, 2012 at 12:41pm
"...but given its design, the buttons will be limited to whichever keys OEMs choose to include, such as the numeric dialer and QWERTY keypad found in phones"
This completely kills the technology. If what this article says is true, manufacturers of the devices will be the ONLY people who decide the configurations of the buttons. In other words, homebrew and app developers won't be able to use this display technology for anything that is customized to their liking; only what the device OEM has already configured.
Zoandar
June 12, 2012 at 8:21am
But that is precisely where devices are headed. In the Android platform, for example, where the whole idea was founded on the freedom of choice for users, Google is now backpeddling. Its recent decision to abandon USB Mass Storage in Android 4.0 (ICS) according to what I have read is based on the underlying desire to eliminate ANY type of externally user changeable memory, such as SD cards, as well as doing away with a USB connection. They want all future Android devices to be designed with only a single contiguous block of internal memory, just as the first smartphones had. That way, THEY can choose what software and functionality the device will have, and screw the customer out of any sort of customizations to the platform.
bling581
June 12, 2012 at 9:23am
Dang, well that lowers my desire a bit to look at Android phones the next time I'm ready to upgrade. I still will, but one of the reasons why I like Android is that a lot of phones have micro SD cards. I can't stand Apple charging an extra $100 just to double the memory.
Typo91
June 11, 2012 at 12:09pm
Even StarTrek 25th Century Tech isn't as good as this!
I remember the 90s made StarTech TOS look antiquated.
Now here we are in 2012, insert a Few more decades and Data himself will seem like a children's toy.
