The vibrating touchscreen haptic feedback we’ve all felt in mobile devices may be taking a backseat to a new technology, with a startup out of California coming up with a new type of touchscreen that can mimic real physical buttons.
Using a technology called “microfluidics”, Tactus Technology has been able to give touchscreens a shape to actually press, with dial screens on an iPhone actually getting buttons to press and Android keyboards a physical key suspended on the touchscreen itself.
According to the company, little to no thickness is added in the process, making it likely that the tablets and smartphones of the future can continue to get thinner and still have this sort of technology thrown into it.
So we might be saying goodbye to the keyboard accessories and smartphone keyboards with this tech in the near future, but don’t expect it to be in the next iPhone, as Tactus doesn’t see its product arriving in devices until at least 2013 or 2014.
