Anybody that reads GizChina.com knows that we love Android devices. Not surprising considering that most of the Chinese manufacturers that we cover make Android devices. But there are still a few staff members here that remember the days when we had the beautiful keyboards on our old Blackberry devices.
Gizchina News of the week
Well the clever folks at Tactus have come to our rescue with their Tactile Layer technology. What they have done is create a system with a fluid reservoir and a glare resistance coating that allows Tactus to create “buttons” on demand. The Tactile Layer divides the screen into “tixels” (Tactile Pixels) that can be inflated to create the buttons with a “squishy” feel.
We have yet to see (or touch) the result first hand, but if it’s even half as cool as it seems, we excited see tixels in our future!
Our friends at Engadget had a chance to speak with Tactus and create a video demonstration of the technology.
I hope the material is strong, it’d be disastrous if the fluid layer popped in your pocket or something. 😛
OH MY GOODNESS !!
I LOVE IT !!
I watched the video and immediately visualised dozens of applications BEARING IN MIND MY CHOSEN AUDIENCE IS … ‘SENIORS … THEIR FRIENDS AND FAMILIES.
The designers have shown a 7 inch tablet – but I believe this invention will apply to any 5 inch screen and upwards – maybe even smaller.
I guess that every sceptic out there will develop a personal ‘damage event’ scenario – so let’s trust the developers to have got this right.
BRING IT ON !!
Oké, now we go back to buttons again? let’s keep it touch
There are lots of people out there that still enjoy thier qwerty devices and like android as well and it’s a shame the qwerty android industry has died. I’m glad I have my droid still with me cause I love me some qwerty keyboard but this could be the reason I’ll switch to a device with only a touchscreen.
plus this would be awesome for blind people
Thats cool stuff…
would really help with many…..controlling of objects for instance gaming on android will have better controls
Who knows we might see a Psp equipped with it 😀