The world's first lumpy tablet was shown at CES in Las Vegas last week and it fascinated many who witnessed this impressive technology. Tactus Technology presented their lumpy tablet which has buttons that appear and disappear. The official name for the technology used on the tablet is called morphing tactile surface, which means that actual buttons rise from the screen for typing and then disappear for viewing. A recent report from Venture Beat says that the lumpy tablet runs on Android for now, but it doesn't solely rely on any specific OS.
When asked about the release date for this incredible technology, Tactus chief executive Craig Ciesla stated,
“We’re planning to be in production by the end of this year. We’re working with customers on an exact launch date.”
A Tactus-enabled touchscreen device holds a tiny amount of fluid in a reservoir that is located in the tablet and when the operating system invokes buttons, small amounts of the fluid flow into the necessary spots on the screen. This is how the physical QWERTY keyboard is produced.
Last week at CES (Consumer Electronics Show), Ciesla briefly explained the technology by saying,
”Dynamic Tactile Layer component is the same thickness as the layer it replaces and requires no change to the underlying display or touch sensor. In addition, the size of screen, though currently demoed on a 7-inch tablet, is scalable all the way up to a TV screen, and down to a standard smartphone size. The largest that we routinely make today is 14 inches. But we’re able to make it much larger … there are no fundamental limits to its size.”
You can check out a demonstration of the lumpy tablet on the video located to the left of this article.
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