Return in good hands: tactile feedback displays are becoming a reality
The touch screen is all head when it comes to modern mobile devices. Many users have long been accustomed to a virtually unresponsive relationship with them - the maximum that is available today is the slight twitching of vibration motors that record the fact of interaction with the interface.
There are, fortunately, people in the world who have set themselves the goal of changing the state of affairs. These are a group of researchers from Microsoft Research headed by Hong Tang, who have been closely involved in the development of feedback displays for several years. They have already presented several existing prototypes, including those based on Nokia Lumia.
At the time of push-button telephones, users had no particular problems with recording the response from the device. Mechanical keyboards even allowed blind typing - a skill so common among young people in the early 2000s and now available only to the most notorious mobile ninja.
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However, Microsoft researcher Ms. Hong Tang, who specializes in tactile feedback, has to evolve touchscreens, taking into account all past experience.
“What can be considered a really cool achievement is to take a smooth piece of glass and make it something special,” says Ms. Tang. “It's almost magic.”
At present, Hong is working to endow touchscreens with tactile feedback. And under this we should understand not only the response to pressing the virtual keys, but also the feeling of various textures of graphic elements.
The most amazing thing is that devices with such screens exist not only in theory - finished prototypes can be viewed in detail in the following video:
As we said at the beginning of our post, some devices can respond to touch with a vibration feedback, using the entire body. This is a good simulation, but still it is far from ideal. Another thing is when the device interacts with the user precisely at the point of the “working” touch. Despite the fact that touch screen feedback technologies are still in the process of research and are not ready for mass production, functioning prototypes (including those based on Lumia smartphones) suggest that user experience may change again in the future.
“We are developing technologies that will allow you not only to touch the computer screen, but also to feel it,” says Ms. Hong Tan.
Now a group of developers from Microsoft Research is closely engaged in research into the realization of tactile feedback in devices with touch displays, which include work on both hardware and software. From the point of view of human perception, some of them are based on stimulation of skin receptors, others are muscle.
One option is to use a piezoelectric material in the interlayer between the protective glass and the display. Under the influence of electrical voltage, the active layer bends, and after it the outer layer slightly bends. Even the slightest change in the physical structure of the surface at the point of contact (the glass of the smartphone and the user's finger) gives the sensation of pressing a key, and the characteristic click arising from the above described action only enhances this sensation.
“When you type text on the virtual keyboard of the smartphone, the outer layer literally flexes instantly under your fingers. This is a very small deflection, but it is enough to give your fingers a signal that reminds you to press a button, ”says Ms. Hong.
Another option is to use an electrostatic field to create an air gap between the display and the user's fingers. In addition, a possible option in which high-frequency vibration will be involved.
In each of the specific cases (and in research on the tactile feedback of touch screens in general), the work is interdisciplinary. For example, in the case of vibration feedback, researchers are required not only to be experts in electronics and mechanics, but also to have extensive knowledge of human sensitivity to different vibration frequencies.
In addition, the above mechanics (or their combinations) can make certain parts of the screen rough or smooth, as demonstrated on a black and white chessboard on the Lumia 920. This principle can be used, for example, to simulate the texture of sand or metal in an image.
Even as of the current moment, this technology seems very interesting and promising. In the case of its commercial implementation, it is not only able to simplify the process of user interaction with a smartphone, but also make life easier for people with disabilities.
There are, fortunately, people in the world who have set themselves the goal of changing the state of affairs. These are a group of researchers from Microsoft Research headed by Hong Tang, who have been closely involved in the development of feedback displays for several years. They have already presented several existing prototypes, including those based on Nokia Lumia.
At the time of push-button telephones, users had no particular problems with recording the response from the device. Mechanical keyboards even allowed blind typing - a skill so common among young people in the early 2000s and now available only to the most notorious mobile ninja.
')
However, Microsoft researcher Ms. Hong Tang, who specializes in tactile feedback, has to evolve touchscreens, taking into account all past experience.
“What can be considered a really cool achievement is to take a smooth piece of glass and make it something special,” says Ms. Tang. “It's almost magic.”
At present, Hong is working to endow touchscreens with tactile feedback. And under this we should understand not only the response to pressing the virtual keys, but also the feeling of various textures of graphic elements.
The most amazing thing is that devices with such screens exist not only in theory - finished prototypes can be viewed in detail in the following video:
As we said at the beginning of our post, some devices can respond to touch with a vibration feedback, using the entire body. This is a good simulation, but still it is far from ideal. Another thing is when the device interacts with the user precisely at the point of the “working” touch. Despite the fact that touch screen feedback technologies are still in the process of research and are not ready for mass production, functioning prototypes (including those based on Lumia smartphones) suggest that user experience may change again in the future.
“We are developing technologies that will allow you not only to touch the computer screen, but also to feel it,” says Ms. Hong Tan.
Now a group of developers from Microsoft Research is closely engaged in research into the realization of tactile feedback in devices with touch displays, which include work on both hardware and software. From the point of view of human perception, some of them are based on stimulation of skin receptors, others are muscle.
One option is to use a piezoelectric material in the interlayer between the protective glass and the display. Under the influence of electrical voltage, the active layer bends, and after it the outer layer slightly bends. Even the slightest change in the physical structure of the surface at the point of contact (the glass of the smartphone and the user's finger) gives the sensation of pressing a key, and the characteristic click arising from the above described action only enhances this sensation.
“When you type text on the virtual keyboard of the smartphone, the outer layer literally flexes instantly under your fingers. This is a very small deflection, but it is enough to give your fingers a signal that reminds you to press a button, ”says Ms. Hong.
Another option is to use an electrostatic field to create an air gap between the display and the user's fingers. In addition, a possible option in which high-frequency vibration will be involved.
In each of the specific cases (and in research on the tactile feedback of touch screens in general), the work is interdisciplinary. For example, in the case of vibration feedback, researchers are required not only to be experts in electronics and mechanics, but also to have extensive knowledge of human sensitivity to different vibration frequencies.
In addition, the above mechanics (or their combinations) can make certain parts of the screen rough or smooth, as demonstrated on a black and white chessboard on the Lumia 920. This principle can be used, for example, to simulate the texture of sand or metal in an image.
Even as of the current moment, this technology seems very interesting and promising. In the case of its commercial implementation, it is not only able to simplify the process of user interaction with a smartphone, but also make life easier for people with disabilities.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/235961/
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