Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Touchscreen Touches You Back
A prototype screen with dynamically changeable physical buttons on a visual display has been created by Carnegie Mellon researchers. The device uses a latex overlay on top of a touchscreen to create a tactile surface.
The following video tells the story.
(Dynamically Changeable Physical Buttons on a Visual Display video)
The system does not have quite as much flexibility as a standard touchscreen, since the shapes of the tactile portion must be decided in advance and are part of the hardware.
See Tactile 'Display' For Fingertips and the Gel Tactile Display for variations on this idea.
SF writers have thought about the idea of adding tactile capabilities to devices that ordinarily do not have them. Frederik Pohl's Joymaker device has a tactile net capability.
More recently, Battlestar Galactica featured a Cylon datastream terminal with tactile qualities that was more flexible than the Carnegie Mellon design.
(Cylon datastream 'terminal')
Via Popular Science.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 7/22/2009)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Display ")
Did Frank Herbert Predict Bistable Displays Like E-Ink?
'A broken circle with arrows pointing to a right-hand flow appeared in the chalf.' - Frank Herbert, 1964.
I Need An Outdoor Spherical Display
'Usually a spherical display hovered in the centre...' - Iain M. Banks, 2010.
Outdoor Video Screens Can Be Arbitrarily Large
The Shape of Things To Come, HG Wells, 1936.
iPhone Air Fulfils Jobs' Promise From 2007 - A Giant Screen!
'... oblongs were all over the floor and surfaces.' - Kazuo Ishiguro, 2021.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Tactile Skin Supplier Map
'What strange sensitivity! What an amazing development of science was manifested in every move and act and word of this Robot!'
Flock Stymied By 'Adversarial Fashion'
'Forget the head atop it, the legs below, feet, arms, hands. It compels erasure.'
Orb Nomad Zero-Emission Electric Aircraft
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair or to perch on a flagpole in imitation of a giant bird, even in the windy city of Chicago.'
ICE Buys Shock Gloves Like Batman's
What else is the Caped Crusader using?
Factories In The Sky Will Surpass Those Of Earth
'The thirty-odd miles of The Factory’s circumference...'
Sleeper Drones Lie in Wait
'Wandering mines, you took them out on the edge of the desert, set them down and activated them.'
Warfare Goes Underground In Ukraine
'Once in the very first weeks of the war, before everyone had been evacuated from the surface...'
3D Printed Organs From Space
'For a while your colonists will have to come up to the [orbital] Hospital...'
Robot Bees 3D Printed By Festo
'At first I was struck by the large size of these bees..'
DIY Robot Scorpion Crushes It
'...it raised its front end off the ground and waved its antennae at them, then raised one armoured claw as if to snip them out of the sky.'
How To Settle An Argument Between Two Robots
'Henry... assumed the curious absent look of a robot talking on the TBR circuits.'
The Wind Phone Calls Those Who Have Passed On
'Only I heard that!'
Don't Want To Wear A TIght Shiny Bodysuit?
'He looked a good bit like an elderly, fat beetle.'
Light Society: Simulates Earth-Scale Society With A Billion AI Agents
'The king, an old hand in the running of tyrannies, instantly grasped the directions...'
Satyress Centaur Robot Horror Reminds Everyone Of Something
'Fess was very dutiful'
When Colds Threaten You Can't Do This - Or Can You?
'...a hemispherical force field enclosing his head.'
