Tactus Technology from California is developing a prototype product of such a touch screen: when you want the feeling of a physical keyboard, keys will appear on the screen, and when you don't want them, they will disappear. When you are typing and playing games, do you want a feeling of physical pressing and knocking? Will the concept of touch and entity interaction change the trend of touch screen in the future?
As shown in the figure below, when you make a call, those numeric keys will bulge and have the physical feeling of pressing. After the call is made, the bulged keys will disappear immediately and the entire screen will return to the original smooth touch screen.
Technology introduction: Use a plastic substrate and cylinder reservoir filled with liquid to replace the top layer of glass on the ordinary touch screen to increase tactile feedback, so that the screen feels more like the familiar old keyboard.
From game consoles to car navigation, from smart phones to tablets, touch screens are everywhere in life. In 2012 alone, 1.2 billion touch screens were made into smart phone screens, and another 130 million were used to make tablets. However, the touch screen has caused some difficulties in typing, so Tactus Technology tries to solve this problem. Micah Yairi, the co-founder and chief technology officer of the company, invented a multi-layer panel containing many micro pipes filled with a special oil. When the actuator receives a signal (for example, the user starts the SMS application), it draws additional liquid into the pipe, and the button will rise on the elastic surface, after which the user can press the button to input text. After input, the panel will automatically resume the finger sliding mode within 1 second.
Tactus is working hard to improve the appearance of panels and create customized presentations for equipment manufacturers. The Touch Revolution department of Taiwan TPK, one of the world's largest touch screen manufacturers, cooperates with Tactus to produce the prototype. The key geometry can be customized during production. On a tablet or mobile phone, the touch sensitive area of the display can be roughly changed through software to fit the shape of the keys and prevent the finger from mistaking when touching the place between the keys.
Craig Ciesla, CEO and co-founder of Tactus, expects the company's products to be launched in the market by the end of 2013. The company raised $6 million last year. "We actually want to give manufacturers a set of design tools," Sisra said
Minor imagination
In the era of BlackBerry, the sense of full keyboard operation has made many BBers feel the charm of full keyboard. Nowadays, touch screen input method is popular, and BlackBerry full keyboard users are also becoming less and less. Large screen, multiple applications, and sensitive and convenient touch control have become the preference of many users. RIM expects to officially launch Blackberry 10 series mobile phones: full touch screen and full keyboard on January 30, 2013. If the technology of Tactus is mature, full keyboard will appear on all touch screen phones in the future. BBers can not only experience the charm of full keyboard on BlackBerry phones, but also the interactive experience of physical keys on the touch screen, which may be another way to experience the charm of full keyboard.
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