Microsoft working on tactile touchscreen
NOV 29, 2010
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.024858
New Scientist : Microsoft is developing a way to create temporary bumps, ridges, and other textural features on a touchscreen, writes Paul Marks for New Scientist. The tactile touchscreen works by using a layer of shape-memory plastic to distort the surface of the screen when different wavelengths of ultraviolet light strike the screen’s pixels from beneath. Large table-sized computing displays such as Microsoft’s Surface are the target application, rather than phones or tablets. “Creating well-defined bumps on a touch surface is in many ways the holy grail of text entry on touch devices because it would enable touch typing at much faster speeds than on touchscreens today,” says Patrick Baudisch, a display interaction expert at the University of Potsdam in Germany.
© 2010 American Institute of Physics
