A few weeks ago, right before the new
BlackBerry 10 phones were announced, I dragged a cameraman to San Francisco's Financial District during lunch hour and asked random strangers to name BlackBerry's best feature. Care to guess what the results of my highly unscientific poll were? Even iPhone and
Android users agreed -- the famed keyboard is BlackBerry's top trait.
Increasingly, we "mobile device addicts" are favoring our smartphones
and tablets over our traditional computers to meet our digital demands.
Trouble is, a lot of us still despise typing on these beloved
touch-screen devices. One Silicon Valley startup has created a new kind
of keyboard that could help reduce typos and other fat-fingered
mistakes.
Fremont, Calif.-based, Tactus Technology
uses microfluidics to make physical keys bubble up from the surface of a
touch screen when you need to type and disappear, when you don't.
Microfluidics may sound foreign, but if you've operated an inkjet
printer you've used the technology.
So how do keys appear out of nowhere? It starts with a panel that has
channels built into it. The channels are filled with a non-toxic fluid.
By increasing the pressure in the channels, the fluid pushes up the
surface of the panel, creating an actual key. What's more, Tactus says
the pressure will be adjustable, so the keys could feel a bit squishy,
like a gel pack or they could be harder, like the plastic keys on a
laptop.
Tactus demo-ed a working prototype for us, but they're still refining
the technology. Right now, there's an audible noise when the keys
appear. It should be silent in the final version. And the surface has to
be rugged. You wouldn't want to spring a leak, after all. Durability
tests are part of that process since Tactus needs to guarantee the
surface can't be punctured by a newly manicured fingernail or a
3-year-old trying to scribble on your smartphone with a pen.
Currently, the technology is limited in that it's a fixed single array.
You wouldn't be able to use the Tactus keyboard in both portrait and
landscape mode, for example. But the goal is to make the third
generation of the product dynamic. "The vision that we had was not just
to have a keyboard or a button technology, but really to make a fully
dynamic surface," says cofounder Micah Yairi, "So you can envision the
entire surface being able to raise and lower depending on what the
application is that's driving it." Meaning it could display a keyboard
when you're typing an e-mail, a number pad when you're dialing a phone
number, and perhaps letter tiles when you're playing Words With Friends.
Tactus says it wants to be in production by the end of 2013 or beginning
of 2014. Executives were mum about which companies they're talking to.
Just one partnership has been announced to date, with Touch Revolution,
a Bay Area company that makes touch displays. Tactus VP Nate Saal says,
"There are more and more touch screens being integrated in devices...
from your mobile phone, cell phone, into refrigerators and appliances
and I think those are all opportunities for Tactus to really improve the
interface and usability of those devices."
Tactus took it's prototype to
CES in January.
Among the attendees who tried out the technology was a man who was
visually impaired. His reaction upon feeling the keys under his fingers?
"Amazing."
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2013
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February
(9)
- LinkedIn rewards all employees with iPad Minis
- A keyboard that rises up from flat touch screens
- Apple cuts MacBook Pro Retina prices, bumps specs
- Google Asks “Why Fly Private When You Can Fly Priv...
- Opera Confirms “Gradual” Shift To WebKit — Startin...
- iPad 5 To See Complete Redesign, Will Launch In Oc...
- Android Tablet Beats iPad Sales in Japan
- Microsoft Blames PC Makers For Slow Windows 8 Sales
- Facebook Tests Another (Flipped) Timeline Layout
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February
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