Touch Screens that Touch Back

from Technology Review by MIT:

>>Touch Screens that Touch Back

New piezoelectric technology will make screens more tactile.

Forget putting your phone on vibrate. A novel "high-definition" touch-feedback display can give a touch screen the feel of a textured surface. The technology was developed for mobile devices by the San Jose CA-based company Immersion, and is a step toward mimicking the feel of physical buttons on flat screens.

...

Immersion is experimenting with making the digit at the center of the virtual dial pad feel as if it stands out more than the other keys. This would make it easier for the user to feel where the other keys are, says Kingsley-Jones.

What's most interesting about Immersion's approach, according to Hayward, is the lateral movement of the screen. Because it's difficult for nerves to distinguish the direction of such movement, it's possible to trick the senses into feeling upward pressure where there is none, he says.

Immersion is also developing software to record the feel of a real button and replicate that on-screen. In blind tests, subjects were unable to distinguish between pressing a real button and a simulated one, says Kingsley-Jones.

Immersion is talking to handset manufacturers and expects the first devices incorporating the technology to appear toward the end of the year.