Skip to Main Content

Tactus Unveils Physical Keyboard for Touch-Screen Displays

A new technology called Tactile Layer promises to revolutionize the world of touch screens with dynamic transparent keyboards.

June 8, 2012

Before the iPhone completely took over the smartphone space and inspired a legion of imitators, the most common argument naysayers used for avoiding the device, and those like it, was the lack of a tactile keyboard. In fact, this excuse is still in pretty heavy use even today for a large group of BlackBerry users still wed to their button-interface gadgets. But those days may be over.

A company called Tactus has unveiled a new innovation that places a thin layer on top of a touch screen that creates physical buttons on-the-fly when triggered. When not in use, the buttons recede invisibly back into the layer's surface.

The first public demonstration of the technology occurred several days ago during a demo at the Society for Information Display (SID) conference in Boston, using an Android tablet. According to Tactus, the technology is "the world's first deformable tactile surface that creates dynamic physical buttons that users can actually see and feel in advance of entering data into the device."

The technology, dubbed Tactile Layer, doesn't add any significant thickness to a device, nor does it require an inordinate amount of extra power. The company also claims the Tactile Layer works with most touch screens in use today and could be used for everything from a tiny smartphone screen to a large, touch-screen television.

In addition to the growing market for smartphones, the company also hopes to apply the Tactile Layer to ebook readers, automotive displays, industrial controls, gaming devices, personal navigation devices, home remote controls, and even medical devices. Although the Tactile Layer sounds a bit like science fiction, earlier this week Tactus posted a video (below) showing off exactly how the technology works.

The Tactus Tactile Layer is not expected to hit the commercial market until 2013.