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tactus

A keyboard that rises up from flat touch screens

A few weeks ago, right before the new BlackBerry 10 phones were announced, I dragged a cameraman to San Francisco's Financial District during lunch hour and asked random strangers to name BlackBerry's best feature. Care to guess what the results of my highly unscientific poll were? Even iPhone and Android users agreed -- the famed keyboard is BlackBerry's top trait.

Increasingly, we "mobile device addicts" are favoring our smartphones and tablets over our traditional computers to meet our digital demands. Trouble is, a lot of us still despise typing on these beloved touch-screen devices. One Silicon Valley startup has created a new kind of keyboard that could help reduce typos and other fat-fingered mistakes.

Fremont, Calif.-based, Tactus Technology uses microfluidics to make physical keys bubble up from the surface of a touch screen when you need to type and disappear, when you don't. Microfluidics may sound foreign, but if you've operated an inkjet printer you've used the technology. … Read more

Tactus touch screen sprouts keys and buttons

We've gotten used to touch screens always being flat. Get ready for that to change.

Silicon Valley start-up Tactus Technology has designed a touch screen that grows 3D buttons and knobs where and when you want them.

Smartphones, tablets, game consoles, and kiosks equipped with the technology would sprout physical controls like QWERTY keyboards and knobs on demand. The controls would recede into the touch screen surface after they've served their purpose.

3D controls are often easier to maneuver than today's flat touch-screen controls, as you can use them without looking. Getting the best of both worlds means marrying physical controls' higher accuracy and ease of use with touch screens' elegance, simplicity, and dynamic nature. The physical cues are especially important for people who can't see well or who have trouble with fine hand movements. They also make it easier to control your cell phone when it's in your pocket.

The trick to making a morphing touch screen useful is fitting it in a smartphone. The Tactus design calls for sandwiching a fluid between touch-screen layers and pushing the fluid around with a series of tiny valves. The top layer is flexible, so pushing the fluid to one part of the screen raises the surface there. … Read more