2023-04-26 14:53:00
Researchers from the Future Interfaces Group (FIG) at Carnegie Mellon University have just created incredible technology that promises to take touch screen interaction to another level. Called Flat Panel Haptics it allows OLED screens to create simulated physical buttons making the feeling of pressing something on the screen even more natural.
See an example in the video below:
The new technology has been submitted to the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Hamburg, Germany, where more details are expected to be revealed.
Flat Panel Haptics uses built-in electroosmotic pumps (EEOPs) just 1.5 mm thick capable of moving liquids with electric fields stored in thin reservoirs with a flexible surface that can swell to simulate buttons on OLED screens in regarding a second.
Thanks to this technology, the liquid can be controlled by the EEOPs with pressure and rigidity so that it feels solid with a thickness of up to 5 millimeters like a small button. In this case, the EEOPs system and reservoirs need to be under the OLED screen so that the mechanism is hidden.
Although it seems relatively simple, Flat Panel Haptics can allow applications to generate even greater immersion and facilitate accessibility for the visually impaired by guiding movements across the screen.
Despite everything, the technology still has some limitations such as the shape and size of the buttons, which still need to be predetermined, but this can be circumvented if scientists manage to create smaller pockets like pixels on a screen, which would make the potential of this invention bigger than Apple’s Force Touch and Taptic Engine.
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