The video can be found here:
http://vimeo.com/43431035
I really dislike the voice-over they have, but that might be personal preference. It just sounds like a regular person imitating a professional voice actor to me.
Buttons that morph out of the surface of the device.
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Re: Buttons that morph out of the surface of the device.
#12I am sure the first generation is going to be fraught with problems, but this looks so good that I would badly like to own part of this company. Massive game changer, with the sort of technology I thought to be 5-10 years out. Unqualified thumbs up from me.
Re: Buttons that morph out of the surface of the device.
#13Judging by the video, it looks like the layout of the buttons is fixed, only their presence is toggleable. If so, that's a bit of a bummer.
Even if you couldn't have overlapping pre-determined button fields for the dialer, apps, browser, etc., just having the keyboard, even in one configuration, would still be highly functional.
Futuristic version in next 10 years definitely will have a layer of micro-bubbles like a LCD matrix where you could programatically create shapes. I would guess the biggest challenge would be how to send air/fluid to particular chambers. creating channels would require 3D modelling, which means there would be certain thickness involved.
Needless to say, a touch of real buttons is something I truly miss sometimes (switching from Blackberry to iPhone). Kudos to someone (tactus?) that will come up with an iPhone screen shield that will imitate buttons well enough.
Re: Buttons that morph out of the surface of the device.
#14This would be a killer feature for me if the buttons had some kind of depression, so I could feel the button before actually pressing it. Without that feature it's just a bumpy touch screen which isn't all that much better than a flat one in my opinion.
Re: Buttons that morph out of the surface of the device.
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
A bummer. Now, that is classic. I remember using public payphones just a little over a decade ago. One time some kids had put Vaseline on the earpiece. That was a fun time. Now we have a phone in our pocket that we can talk to and have it do nearly anything. By next year, it will have buttons when we want and no buttons when we don't. Vaseline on your ear is a bummer. This button-no-button stuff is not a bummer.
I think you might have to go 20 years to find that kind of difference. A decade ago, at least among the techie Americans that are the typical HN reference point, we had PalmPilot smartphones. Now we have some other brand of smartphones. Soon to have magical buttons, but otherwise not that huge of a revolution. The #1 thing to do with them a decade ago was to browse Google Maps and restaurant-review sites while away f…
We definitely were NOT browsing Google maps on our smartphones a decade ago.
Re: Buttons that morph out of the surface of the device.
#16The video can be found here: http://vimeo.com/43431035 I really dislike the voice-over they have, but that might be personal preference. It just sounds like a regular person imitating a professional voice actor to me.
Yep, shame they went for the Faux-Matrix-Morpheus voice over.
Re: Buttons that morph out of the surface of the device.
#17Reminded me of this recent item:
http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2012/05/apple-re...
Re: Buttons that morph out of the surface of the device.
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you might have to go 20 years to find that kind of difference. A decade ago, at least among the techie Americans that are the typical HN reference point, we had PalmPilot smartphones. Now we have some other brand of smartphones. Soon to have magical buttons, but otherwise not that huge of a revolution. The #1 thing to do with them a decade ago was to browse Google Maps and restaurant-review sites while away f…
We definitely were NOT browsing Google maps on our smartphones a decade ago.
The earliest I had Google (or any) maps on my phone was 6 years ago.
Re: Buttons that morph out of the surface of the device.
#19Very interesting and a bit scary. Think about it, a screen that can reach out and change its shape. That almost guarantees some (software) application misuse if they are given access to screen control. But on the other hand, gaming would be more interesting with something more to interact with than just what is displayed on screen.
It will be interesting to see what becomes of this.
Re: Buttons that morph out of the surface of the device.
#20This would be a killer feature for me if the buttons had some kind of depression, so I could feel the button before actually pressing it. Without that feature it's just a bumpy touch screen which isn't all that much better than a flat one in my opinion.
agreed, feedback is vital