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Comments: 146 +-   Giving Touch-Screen Buttons Depth and Height With Pneumatics on Tuesday November 24, @11:14AM

Posted by timothy on Tuesday November 24, @11:14AM
from the wait-for-pneumatic-spam dept.
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blee37 writes "Researchers at Carnegie Mellon demonstrate 'popping out' touch screen buttons to become physical buttons using pneumatics. The idea is to combine the dynamic reconfigurability of touch screen buttons with the tactile feedback of real buttons. The technology could be applied where tactile feedback is currently lacking, such as in car navigation systems, ATMs, or cell phones."
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Giving Touch-Screen Buttons Depth and Height With Pneumatics 50 Comments More /

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  • Oh no... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 24, @11:16AM (#30214840)

    This is a BAD idea for in-car SatNav/GPS.

    Anything that might make drivers think they can set/adjust something by reaching and groping when they should be concentrating on driving will cause accidents.

    • Re:Oh no... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 24, @11:19AM (#30214910)

      As opposed to having to stare at the device.... yeah, much worse

      • ONE WORD: (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Philip K Dickhead (906971) <folderol@fancypants.org> on Tuesday November 24, @11:34AM (#30215176) Journal

        "Nipples"

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by oldspewey (1303305)
          If you're that excited by the idea of simulated nipples, there are already numerous options [wikipedia.org] out there to satisfy you.

        • Re:ONE WORD: (Score:5, Interesting)

          by foobsr (693224) on Tuesday November 24, @12:20PM (#30215802) Homepage Journal
          "Nipples"

          Quote [me.com]:"PhotoelasticTouch is a tabletop system designed to facilitate touch-based interaction with real objects made from transparent elastic material. The elastic material provides a realistic haptic interface, which when combined with the visual content displayed on the LCD tabletop, enables a coupling of the physical world and digital content. The system utilizes the photoelastic properties of transparent rubber to detect when a user pushes, pulls, or pinches the object, while the LCD provides appropriate visual feedback in accordance with the stress applied to the rubber."

          Well.

          CC.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by F34nor (321515)

          I musician I knew loved the Nord Lead II synth because the knobs felt like "Nipples."

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Forge (2456)
      It will be great for people who can't drive. Like the blind or those with limited vision.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by orgelspieler (865795)
        Actually, several of these nav systems have mode to get directions when walking about. So I don't see why it would be a bad idea to make this more accessible for blind people. Providing a touchable map of the area could prove quite useful. Also, raised buttons would let them know where to press.

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by rrhal (88665)
          I'm pretty sure the guy in front of me on the 520 bridge this morning was blind or of limited vision. He had his head up his ass and he sure as hell couldn't drive. Perhaps a tactile feed back GPS would help him - it wouldn't hurt.
    • It's also a dupe. [slashdot.org]

  • pistons! (Score:3, Funny)

    by cashX3r0 (1588469) on Tuesday November 24, @11:19AM (#30214902)
    so there are pistons within the cell phone of the future? batteries don't stand a chance. and then you have to oil your phone.

  • Er (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Quiet_Desperation (858215) on Tuesday November 24, @11:19AM (#30214918)
    Touch screens are nice because they can be programmed to display whatever controls you wish, but isn't the lack of moving parts another advantage? This seems like it would have MTBF issues.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by damburger (981828)
      Personally, I like having tactile feedback when i press buttons - and the lack of it has kept me away from a pure touchscreen device. I bought a HTC Dream instead of an iPhone for this reason (and the fact I'm not a massive Apple fanboy)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Splab (574204)

        HTC Hero (pureish touchscreen) has tactile feedback when you press a button in the form of vibration, I find this very nice, gives me a clue about the phone registering my press and I can go on to the next one - it does however, not, help me find the button I want without looking.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by LOLLinux (1682094)
      What moving parts? Did you even bother to read the article? The screen just has a bunch of air pockets inside that react to positive or negative pressure changes within the screen.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Garble Snarky (715674)
        "An air chamber behind the backing can be pressurized or depressurized using pneumatic technology, in this case fan-based pumps."

        Fans generally move.

  • Why Not... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Monkeedude1212 (1560403) on Tuesday November 24, @11:22AM (#30214968) Journal

    Just make buttons that have a touch screen on them, thus you still have the scroll-ability and versatility of a touch screen, combined with the tacticle feedback of buttons when you want things to function like a button...

    Or am I completely missing the point?

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by cashX3r0 (1588469)
      missing the point. the object here is to have balloons in your phone that can fill up and deflate. this way when you let your baby girl play with your phone, she scratches at the 'button' until it pops.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by maxume (22995)

      The assembly of something with 15 buttons using the linked idea would probably be quite a lot cheaper than the assembly of 15 separate buttons, and the electronics to drive it would probably be simpler.

  • Visual feedback (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Enderandrew (866215) <enderandrew@g[ ]l.com ['mai' in gap]> on Tuesday November 24, @11:23AM (#30214992) Homepage Journal

    I assumed I'd have issue with the touch keyboard on the iPhone. However, when I press a key, that key is highlighted and enlarges. I receive visual feedback of the key I pressed, even if I don't have physical feedback. Yes, it requires I look when I text, but I can't imagine many scenarios where I'd really ever text without looking just because there was some physical feedback.

    I'll take the lack of moving parts over the physical feedback, especially given how often I've dropped my phone.

  • Better idea (Score:2, Interesting)

    by amplt1337 (707922)

    Establish a grid of button surfaces, kind of like pixels, which can be dynamically re-grouped to merge them into larger buttons, and then put the display on that.

    So, imagine you had a keyboard with essentially no gaps between the keys, and a screen on top of them. You could make one button out of qwe, one button out of tgyh, etc., while displaying your graphics seamlessly.

    Or you could just do what ATMs have already been doing for ages, which is have blank buttons beside the screen and add the labels. But

    • Or you could just do what ATMs have already been doing for ages, which is have blank buttons beside the screen and add the labels. But nooo, gotta be all fancy-like...

      That could take up a lot more space, especially when it's a full keyboard being displayed. Not ideal for mobile devices.

      • That could take up a lot more space, especially when it's a full keyboard being displayed. Not ideal for mobile devices.

        Well, right. Then again, typing is not ideal for mobile devices. Sure, you can jerry-rig solutions, but none of them work terribly well. (At least, neither Blackberries nor iPhones seem to have the problem well-solved). Probably the best answer for full-size keyboard stuff for mobile devices is some kind of neutral-hand-position bimanual chording keyboard, but that's expensive and intimidating, and requires a lot of learning on the user's part.

  • Pricetag? Reliability? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by courteaudotbiz (1191083) on Tuesday November 24, @11:26AM (#30215042) Homepage
    And what would be the actual pricetag of such a device? I understand that we use more and more electronics to simplify the mechanics behind our devices. Now, with a pump, you need to physically inject air under the screen, so you have moving parts, and they are usually costly... besides, what would be the reliability of such a thing? and could you get a "flat" screen?

  • Having read TFA (Score:5, Funny)

    by fridaynightsmoke (1589903) on Tuesday November 24, @11:28AM (#30215074) Homepage

    I am left thinking "so what?". All they did was PROJECT graphics onto an inflatable surface, and used a camera and image recognition to determine which 'button' was being pressed.

    I think it's a bit of a stretch to describe this as a 'touch screen'; the image is projected onto the surface (which could be true for ANY surface) and the surface itself does NOT detect touches. There is also no tactile feedback whatsoever. I might as well get one of those laser projection keyboards, set it up on the bonnet of my car and announce that I've made a "self-propelling air-conditioned touchscreen that seats four".

  • An unavoidable limitation is that the mask itself is static, meaning that new shapes cannot be created dynamically. The technology only allows controlling whether the shapes pop in, pop out, or remain flat.

    That makes it useless for all but a few uncommon use cases. But it may be the beginning of something, maybe another team will come up on a way to create a programmable mask.

  • Why? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Weren't touch-screens the latest rage because.. you didn't have to.. push... buttons?

    • Nope - they're great because they can be ANY array of buttons, plus whatever else you want to display

  • Electroactive polymers? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Abcd1234 (188840) on Tuesday November 24, @11:38AM (#30215218) Homepage

    I thought people were already trying to do this sort of thing using electroactive polymers [wikipedia.org]. Certainly there seems to be a couple [freepatentsonline.com] patents [patentstorm.us] on the idea [faqs.org], not to mention someone who thinks the technology could be used to make braille-capable touchscreens [popsci.com].

  • killer app (Score:5, Funny)

    by jjeffries (17675) on Tuesday November 24, @11:38AM (#30215226)
    The killer app for this will of course be a Timex Sinclair 1000 emulator.
  • or are you just happy to see me?

  • This explains Star Trek (Score:4, Funny)

    by Shivetya (243324) <shivetya@noSpAM.archonon.com> on Tuesday November 24, @11:40AM (#30215256) Homepage

    and their exploding work stations.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Tablizer (95088)

      This new technology has something that even sparking Trek battles don't have: panels that actually punch you in the face.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mcgrew (92797) *

      Actually, the "exploding work stations" comes from computers even more primitive than the real ones in the 1960s. Vacuum tubes consume large amounts of power (a filimant has to be heated, much like an incandescant light bulb), and if you have a physical short (like the first computer bug that was actually a moth that shorted out some wires) you often have a "POP!" and some smoke.

  • Immersion Corporation is a small technology company that is also providing haptic (touch) feedback for a variety of electronics, including touch screens. They have the technology to make a flat button on a touch screen feel like it is a 3-dimensional button being depressed and it isn't confined to a single configuration. Lg, Samsung, and Nokia already license Immersion's technology and mobile phones with touch feedback are already being sold in Asia. In my opinion, this latex button is a good idea but it wo

  • I periodically read about demos of this technology using pneumatics, but it seems like a very limiting way to do it. The article says:

    all the buttons must popped in or out at once...new shapes cannot be created dynamically

    For this to ever become in general use, we need something pixel-addressable. Seems like something that is piezoelectric or electrostatic is more likely to be successful that pneumatics.

    I like the question posed in the article:

    When do you think pneumatic technology like this will turn the flat touch screen buttons on our phones into physical buttons?
    1. 2 years
    2. 5 years
    3. 10+ years
    4. Never

    Probably never. Had they asked "when will haptic technology turn the flat touch screen buttons..." instead of asking about the specific technology, t

  • I feel like there is some sort of pertinent pizza-based analogy here... something about how when the crust has larger bubbles, it's a more rich and textural experience... I'm not sure though, as pizza-based analogies aren't really my expertise...

  • This reminds me of that bizarre "Transformer blob" video that was reported here some time ago. I dunno if I want my touchscreens morphing on me when I'm not looking!

  • This would be extremely effective in making touchscreen interfaces usable for the blind.

  • i cant stand the touchscreen interface...its a relic that persists because we are too lazy or stupid to grasp abstract concepts presented to us in the start of the 21st century. We still want to shake, poke, bump, and twist our interfaces to make them do what we want. Its just one more way to dumb-down information and technology as opposed to addressing the real issue: education.

  • Vat-grown octopus skin will make this obsolete. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jeffb (2.718) (1189693) on Tuesday November 24, @12:26PM (#30215878)

    Okay, maybe not octopus skin -- but in it, we have an existence proof for a surface that can display high-bandwidth color changes and slower, but quite elaborate, texture changes. With all the progress being made with microfluidics and chip-scale effectors, why on Earth would anyone pursue a chugging, hissing, thermodynamically-disadvantaged pneumatic system for this?

  • ...and discarded it because the screen itself is not flexible enough for serious dynamics (e.g. the form that your keyboard keys have), or if you use a second surface above it that you fill with the air, you get optical distortions.

    My current concept is much cooler: Put pins in every spot between 4 pixels (on the corners), and use small magnetic actuators (like speakers) behind the screen, to drive the pins up and down. then attach a flexible foil on the top of the pins. now you can create very nice, fast a

  • ... the obligatory Rule 34 implementation. Well, maybe not just see it ......

    • Shocking people who use their touchscreen in the car might be a good feature, if that means they only mess with it when they really must and spend more time devoted to actual driving!

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