The future of touch screens might allow you to feel things through the screen.
New deformable touch screen technology, named DeformIO, has been developed by scientists at Britain's University of Bath. Under the force applied by the user's fingers, the surface becomes softer or "stiffer," according to research recently presented at the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
DeformIO could allow users to feel items through their screens and may have varied applications in commerce, communications, medicine and even gaming. This new type of screen might let users feel items through their phones—such as the fabric of a product—or interact with maps or temperature gauges on car screens.
"You'd be directly manipulating a digital object the way you normally would a physical one," said James Nash, a computer science postgraduate at the University of Bath and a DeformIO researcher, in a statement.
DeformIO, which is made of silicone, uses pneumatics and resistive sensing to provide a continuous, tactile experience by employing arrays of raised "pins" under the display, which lower sections of the screen when pressed. Previous iterations of the technology used movable touch screen panels or rigid pins, which didn't work so well.
DeformIO allows a user to run a finger along the soft-feeling screen. Users can also depress multiple regions of the screen at the same time.
"Our screen allows users to perceive rich tactile feedback on a soft surface," Nash said. "It gives the same benefits as today's glass-based screens—which allow you to control your device by moving your finger fluidly across the surface—but with the added benefit of a person being able to use force to interact with their device at a deeper level."
Researchers hope DeformIO could be used for a vast range of applications, including video games, medical training simulations and even remote physical contact via video call.
It could also be used in car touch screens or when using digital maps, the researchers suggest.
"We could enhance the touch screens that are becoming very commonplace in modern cars: for example, you could apply force to control the temperature within your car, feeling the surface stiffen up below your finger as you increase the temperature setting," Nash said in a video discussing the technology.
"Digital maps are another area where we see promise for deformable displays," he continued. "Users can physically feel information encoded into the display, such as topographical data where areas of land are hard and areas of water are soft. Users could also use force-augmented gestures to interact with the device seamlessly, applying force to look between layers such as topographical data and satellite view."
Nash went on: "You'd get an enormous amount of information from your map. For instance, by pushing into a city, you'd get instant demographical data, and by pressing on a specific shop, you'd know from its level of stiffness if it was open."
The DeformIO is still very much a prototype at the moment, but the hope is that one day it will become a revolutionary product after many more years of development.
"We hope that in 10 to 20 years' time, the concepts it embodies could be in your mobile phone. For now, we're exploring the applications it might be best suited to," Jason Alexander, a professor of computer science at the University of Bath, said in the statement.
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