08 July 2008

More Details On Nokia
Haptikos Tactile Touchscreens

There is a huge problem with touchscreen devices, the lack of stimulus for the sense of touch, there is no confirming tactile feel that buttons and mechanical controls provide when you touch it, it doesn’t touch you back and therefore most of us still prefer the good old buttons instead of the piece of the flat and cold glass.

Without fifth sense and tactile feedback its hard to deal with world around us and especially with a mobile devices, its hard to orient yourself and control the user interface without feeling it, actually it is nearly impossible, at least for me?

Few moths back we informed you that Nokia is working on new touchscreen technology which allows tactile feedback to be implemented into the touchscreen interface to make graphical buttons feel real, but up until now there hasn't been much news about this very promising technology.

Now thanks to the Unwired View and new patent published under the patent cooperation treaty (PCT) we finally got a few more details about Nokia's Haptikos Tactile technology.

Using tactile feedback technology, on-screen buttons feel as if they press and release like mechanical buttons allowing touch screens to be more effective, especially in environments where vibro and audio feedback are inappropriate or difficult to use.

The basic technology is not that difficult, this is achieved by placing a plurality of closely spaced voltage controllable protuberances that can be raised and lowered to provide press and release like feeling corresponding to the user's selection.

I guess that Tactile feedback will be also synchronized with the appropriate vibr-tactile, audio and on-screen graphical events to provide an effective and complete feedback to user's actions.

The most importantly this tactile feedback layer is thin and completely transparent which makes it invisible to the user when it is placed above the touchscreen, or even integrated into the touchscreen plane.

Anyway, when no current is applied, the protuberances are flush with the surface of touchscreen and the whole surface area feels solid and smooth. When voltage is applied, the protuberances raise from the surface with increasing extent, providing the feel of tactile elements on a touchscreen. By controlling on which parts of the touchscreen and when the protuberances are raised, and illusion of a tactile feedback is achieved.

The protuberances themselves consist of a transparent fluid filled compartments, covered with translucent elastic sheet or foil. Alongside these compartments are piezoelectric actuating members that protrude into them as voltage is applied.

The pressure on a liquid in the compartments created by protruding actuators makes the elastic surface or the compartments to bulge out, creating the touchscreen surface area friction.