Could have Tactus Technology created the holy grail for touch-powered devices when writing and typing is a concern? The company recently showed its “Tactile Layer” technology, a new system designed to make modern touch-screens have more physical-based interaction features.
Presented during the Display Week held by the Society for Information Display (SID) in Boston, Tactic Layer is described as a lightweight, power-efficient and easily-integrated technology that creates a haptic interface on-the-fly when the user needs to write text or input data.
The technology can be programmed to show several types of interactive features, ie. keys resembling the ones of a “real” keyboard or other kinds of buttons and elements: the interaction is haptic (the user can “feel” the buttons when he or she touches them) but also visual (once created, the interface can be seen as a “real” UI and not just a virtualized one).
Tactus Technology made its Tactic Layer by using a microfluidic system that lets the interactive elements “pop out” of the touch (virtual) screen and then disappear once they aren’t useful anymore. The company states that its technology can be easily integrated in any touch-based device with very few drawbacks.
Tactic Layer does not add any more thickness to the display system, Tactus states, it “replaces window and sits on top of the existing touch screen”. The technology works with existing touch sensing and display technologies, needs a minimum amount of power, can be scaled from smartphones up to television screens and is completely customizable as for shape, location and size of the interactive elements.
Source: TG Daily.