Textured Tactile Touchscreens 99
HizookRobotics writes "A new covering developed by Senseg and Toshiba Information Systems gives touchpads, LCDs, and other curved surfaces (eg. cellphones) programmable texture using a high-resolution electrotactile array — a grid of electrodes that excite nerves in the skin with small pulses of current to trick the body into perceiving texture, pressure, or pin-pricks depending on the current amplitude and electrode resolution. The new covering has many potential applications: interactive gaming, touchscreens with texture, robot interfaces, etc."
Re:This could let the blind use touchscreen device (Score:5, Informative)
There have been moving Braille output devices in the past. They were used in the days of text terminals. One can be seen in the movie Sneakers.
Re:Wow, again with the Star Trek tech! (Score:5, Informative)
Is Star Trek really predicting things or is it more that the current generation of geeks were raised on Star Trek and they make it happen?
In at least one instance it was taking a Rodenberry idea and making it happen. He was approached by Disney, who wanted doors that would open and close automatically like Star Trek did. He had to sadly inform them that the "tech" behind the doors was called "stagehands". Somebody finally (don't know if it was Disney Imagineers or someone else) saw it ind invented them; self-opening doors were in most supermarkets within ten years. Citation: Walt Disney's biography (sorry, I have no no ISBN)
My first flip phone was a Motorola Star Tek, which did resemble the original Star Trek communicators.