In the past month or so, I've seen three friends who tell me they are holding on to their Blackberries for as long as they can, because they love the keyboard. The tactile feedback from physical buttons allows typing to be much more accurate than with touchscreen-based keyboards, where you had better make sure you see what you type, or risk embarrassing typos due to 'fat fingers' (autocorrect is a separate challenge).
Tactus offers an amazing alternative. You can watch the video at Tactus' website for yourself. Transparent raised bumps appear on the Tactus Intelligent Surface when you need to type, and disappear when you're done.
According to the company's website, 'microfluidics' drives the
technology. Small fluid channels drive fluid to expand the top-most
layer of the touchscreen to create the
physical buttons in under a second. The technology also enables finger
resting, so users can also touch-type. Imagine how this could be used in mobile, computing or automotive devices, or for gaming, for that matter.
The Asian manufacturing world has already expressed interest. In early January, the specialist in on-demand tactile surfaces announced
that it had closed the first portion of its Series B funding round with
new investors from Asia joining existing investors. The new investors include Ryoyo Electric Corporation (Tokyo), one of
Japan’s leading electronics suppliers. As part of the Series B round, Ryoyo will become the
exclusive sales partner and distributor for Tactus components and
display technology subsystems in Japan.
Said Dr. Craig Ciesla, CEO and co-founder of Tactus: “Ryoyo
and our other Asian investors have chosen to invest in Tactus as they
see the market potential across the industry chain with a large part of
the transactional value focused in Asia.”
This is definitely technology to watch, especially at the review stage. Will the keyboard area be damaged quickly from all the expansion? Are such screens more delicate than basic touchscreens? Is battery life greatly affected? Would it be possible to switch the functionality off to conserve battery life? Would apps have to be updated to support it?
The 64 million dollar question, however, would be: does it really help me type better or more quickly than swiping?
No comments:
Post a Comment