Today, what can only be described as sorcery made an appearance at CES. This "morphing tactile surface" allows a flat touch screen to create physical buttons according to the image on your device. Rather than the traditional haptic feedback that simply makes your screen vibrate whenever you touch a "key" on the screen, Tactus uses a thin microfluidic layer that fills certain areas of the screen to create physical buttons in less than a second.
Tactus' technology is able to mimic any button scheme instantly, be it a QWERTY keyboard, a game pad, num pad, etc. The microfluidic layer is reportedly even functional when the screen is cracked or damaged, lessening the rational fears of some potentially clumsy customers. The surface is stated to replace existing touchscreen technologies with minimal power consumption. This technology is even able to scale to any size. This means we'll be seeing it on PCs and Televisions, soon, and not just handsets.
As a smartphone user, I've been mourning the steady shift away from tactile buttons in the industry. The feel of a physical button layout allows me to text without looking and confirm that I actually pressed a button. The current trend of on-screen keyboards are much more time-consuming and frustrating to me. Tactus creates a marriage of both worlds, giving people like me the satisfactory feel of a button-push, and the sleek, futuristic appearance that other consumers want. For more info, visit www.tactustechnology.com.
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