A Touch Screen with Texture
From: Technology Review - 10/13/2010
By: Kate Greene

Electrovibration could make for a better sensory experience on a smooth touch
surface. 

Touch screens are ubiquitous today. But a common complaint is that the smooth
surface just doesn't feel as good to use as a physical keypad. While some
touch-screen devices use mechanical vibrations to enhance users' experiences
of virtual keypads, the approach isn't widely used, mainly because mechanical
vibrations are difficult to implement well, and they often make the entire
device buzz in your hand, instead of just a particular spot on the screen. 

Now, engineers from three different groups are proposing a type of tactile
feedback that they believe will be more popular than mechanical buzzing.
Called electrovibration, the technique uses electrical charges to simulate
the feeling of localized vibration and friction, providing touch-screen
textures that are impossible to simulate using mechanical actuators. 

Submitted by Jerry Weisman

Read the entire article at:
http://www.technologyreview.com:80/computing/26506/page1/

Links:
Ivan Poupyrev
http://ivanpoupyrev.com/

TeslaTouch
http://www.teslatouch.com/

Touch Screens with Pop-up Buttons
http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/22550/