As I understand it, the "friction" induced in your finger is purely a sensation. I mean how much force can it actually apply to your finger?
Also, the actual nature of the surface isn't altered - I wonder if you have two sensations at once?
Personally, I've been waiting for this for a long time... touch-typing on a screen (as it is common today, iphones and androids being ubiquitous) sucks, as you mistype regularly, even as you look at your screen.
An interesting idea, and probably the nigh-holy-grail to blind users... but I keep thinking that the biggest use of this, or at least the first big use, will be for porn.
I have read my fair share of porn magazines and I am pretty sure they did not have pages with hairy inserts or skin-like spots, even if that would have been trivial to do.
I've seen that a lot in children books though (touch-feel inserts, not porn) and I guess that would be an amazing use of this technology.
From the video, it seems the entire screen has the same touch simulation, it doesn't say anything about being able to address "touch pixels" (tixels? taxels? tacxels?).
So, I guess it's able to switch the simulation very quickly, to implement the various demos they show where the tactile feedback is different for different parts of the screen.
That seems to imply that this won't be compatible with The Other Touchscreen development, i.e. multitouch.
Incidentally, they function by stimulating nerve endings -- either through electrical pulses (electrotactile) or vibrations (vibrotactile). Much like the Senseg device I spoke of, the linked device is probably a variant of vibrotactile where the vibrations are generated by electrostatic forces (think "capacitor forces") via transparent electrodes on the front of the display.
It didn't say anything about how much power this draws. Any EE majors care to comment on whether this could be a reality on battery powered consumer devices?
A guy in my lab played has been playing with something like this off and on for a while, for a different application. My understanding of the technology is that it requires fairly high voltage but extremely low current to work, so the power draw is rather low.
A bigger concern is what happens when you get it wet. This changes the conductive properties of the skin, so you go from a barely noticeable 'tingle' or 'friction' effect to a noticeable shock (think static shock). Thankfully, the current is too low to be dangerous in most cases, but defective circuits could still be a problem in production runs.
I'd be interested to see how this technology deals with such issues.
Although in their white paper, they write that it is further amplified up to 120Vpp.
It shouldn't use much power though, they note that the panel is only supplied with 0.5mA max, lower than many LED currents. They also say that it's the same amount of current used for conventional capacitive touch panels.
Finally, the paper describes the sensations produced. Users have described various settings as feeling sticky or waxy, feeling akin to touching a motorcycle handle or rubber, or running a finger through a viscous fluid.
Aw man, I highly anticipated upon clicking to see the Tesla Model S Sedan's glorious 17" touchscreen display. Ironically enough, this is actually an useful thing for the Model S, for the darn thing aims to replace all knobs and whistles with a touch screen.
Not a single statement on their website on IP. Touch screens in general is a patent mine field and it would be interesting to understand how TeslaTouch's product can differentiate or secure themselves
TeslaTouch uses an effect that has been known since at least 1954 [1] and has been subject of some research so far. This does not mean that noone has IP on an implementation, though.
[1] Mallinckrodt, E., A. Hughes, and W. Sleator, Perception by the Skin of Electrically Induced Vibrations. Science, 1953. 118(3062): pp. 277-278. (from the academic paper on TeslaTouch)
Oh god, is it that horrible shocking sensation you get when stroking the metal casings of amplifiers and other home equipment? As if you get a million small shocks? I hate that...
