I have been thinking about this for a while - great to see someone company is actually taking initiative to really build this! I think this will definitely help to bridge the gap between buttoned and touch phones - will tremendously improve your keyboard accuracy on a phone if nothing else.
Buttons that morph out of the surface of the device.
81–90 of 95 posts
Re: Buttons that morph out of the surface of the device.
#82Prediction: Apple buys the company and the proceeds to get every patent they can on this tech.
Unfortunately for them that won't be a lot of patents that would stand up under examination since there's been heavy research in haptic interfaces, and especially haptic touchscreen interfaces for quite a while now. In fact I would be surprised if Apple wasn't doing research into this themselves.
Apple filed a patent in March 2012 for a haptic touchsceen. http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/03/22/apples_haptic_...
Re: Buttons that morph out of the surface of the device.
#83Judging 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.
While I agree, I do completely hope that we will figure out a way to make the buttons dynamic - may be after 1 or 2 generations of this technology.
Re: Buttons that morph out of the surface of the device.
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Similar to kiba's comment below, but perhaps a step in between, it would make sense for car designers to look at other similarly complex machines that require the operator's constant attention to the outside world before innovating blindly. HOTAS (Hands on Throttle and Stick) as a concept has been adopted almost exclusively in fighter aircraft - and extended into Formula 1 and Indy cars as well - for this exact purpo…
Unless they're in a dogfight, airplanes do not require constant attention to the outside world. That's why autopilots and drones are technologies that have been available in the aerospace industry for years, but are just now getting good enough to consider in cars. Also consider the amount of training that goes into becoming a fighter pilot, vs. learning to drive a car. Powerful interfaces are complex and require a l…
> Unless they're in a dogfight, airplanes do not require constant attention to the outside world.
This sounds like you're not a pilot. Pretty much the first thing flight school teaches you is situational awareness. Constantly visually scanning for nearby traffic is a very, very important skill.
Re: Buttons that morph out of the surface of the device.
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a bit of a bummer because it's trivial and boring. It almost looks like it's just a touchscreen with pockets on the front that you blow compressed air into. The fact that this is getting so much attention - and the fact that it's wasting some of our time in the process - is kind of annoying.
I feel like people like you complained when the first computers were invented because they were slow. This is haptic technology progressing and just the fact that it's getting major media attention is amazing since on-demand haptic feedback is the biggest presence missing from digital technology. Touch is just such a fundamental part of the human experience that anything that advances the technology that gets us to t…
Electrostatic haptic feedback looks much, much, much more promising. Toshiba demo'd it two years ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=j...
Re: Buttons that morph out of the surface of the device.
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Similar to kiba's comment below, but perhaps a step in between, it would make sense for car designers to look at other similarly complex machines that require the operator's constant attention to the outside world before innovating blindly. HOTAS (Hands on Throttle and Stick) as a concept has been adopted almost exclusively in fighter aircraft - and extended into Formula 1 and Indy cars as well - for this exact purpo…
Unless they're in a dogfight, airplanes do not require constant attention to the outside world. That's why autopilots and drones are technologies that have been available in the aerospace industry for years, but are just now getting good enough to consider in cars. Also consider the amount of training that goes into becoming a fighter pilot, vs. learning to drive a car. Powerful interfaces are complex and require a l…
Dogfighting/takeoff/landing is a lot closer to driving in traffic than it is to general flying. The point being that a complete awareness of your surroundings is essential in all of these situations.
Also consider the amount of training that goes into becoming a fighter pilot, vs. learning to drive a car. Powerful interfaces are complex and require a lot of training to manage properly under stress--which is when it is most important to do it right.
This strengthens my point. If something as complex as a fighter jet can have its core functions displayed in an easy to use display in that keeps the pilot's "head up", then certainly we can do it for cars.
HUD has been tried in cars before, but never caught on. Drivers tended to find it more distracting than helpful.
That's because that "HUD" consisted of a an annoying little speedometer that was pretty much out of the line of sight. Today, we have much more information delivered to the driver in general - the most distracting being GPS/Map data and cell phone operation. These are perfect for HUD use.
I'm talking about something like this: http://www.carpages.co.uk/bmw/bmw-7-series-part-1-19-11-08.a...
Re: Buttons that morph out of the surface of the device.
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unless they're in a dogfight, airplanes do not require constant attention to the outside world. That's why autopilots and drones are technologies that have been available in the aerospace industry for years, but are just now getting good enough to consider in cars. Also consider the amount of training that goes into becoming a fighter pilot, vs. learning to drive a car. Powerful interfaces are complex and require a l…
Dogfighting/takeoff/landing is a lot closer to driving in traffic than it is to general flying. The point being that a complete awareness of your surroundings is essential in all of these situations. Also consider the amount of training that goes into becoming a fighter pilot, vs. learning to drive a car. Powerful interfaces are complex and require a lot of training to manage properly under stress--which is when it i…
> This strengthens my point. If something as complex as a fighter jet can have its core functions displayed in an easy to use display in that keeps the pilot's "head up", then certainly we can do it for cars.
Not really. Fighter jets require extensive education and training to be able to fly at all, let alone competently. They can afford to teach the pilot "click the thumb button twice for this, three times for this other thing". Car manufacturers can't.
Re: Buttons that morph out of the surface of the device.
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel like people like you complained when the first computers were invented because they were slow. This is haptic technology progressing and just the fact that it's getting major media attention is amazing since on-demand haptic feedback is the biggest presence missing from digital technology. Touch is just such a fundamental part of the human experience that anything that advances the technology that gets us to t…
Electrostatic haptic feedback looks much, much, much more promising. Toshiba demo'd it two years ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=j...
That looks amazing, I wonder why it hasn't been commercialized yet. Too expensive?
Re: Buttons that morph out of the surface of the device.
#89The 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.
That's funny, I thought it was reminiscent of Agent Smith.
Re: Buttons that morph out of the surface of the device.
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unless they're in a dogfight, airplanes do not require constant attention to the outside world. That's why autopilots and drones are technologies that have been available in the aerospace industry for years, but are just now getting good enough to consider in cars. Also consider the amount of training that goes into becoming a fighter pilot, vs. learning to drive a car. Powerful interfaces are complex and require a l…
Dogfighting/takeoff/landing is a lot closer to driving in traffic than it is to general flying. The point being that a complete awareness of your surroundings is essential in all of these situations. Also consider the amount of training that goes into becoming a fighter pilot, vs. learning to drive a car. Powerful interfaces are complex and require a lot of training to manage properly under stress--which is when it i…
That graphic is hilarious. WTF do all those cryptic numbers and arrows mean?? Even if I knew, I would have to stare at them for a second or two to collect and parse the data.
You might start by asking yourself why, in 2012, almost every car still comes with an analog (dial-style) speedometer. The answer is that they are unambiguous and easily scanned. You do not need to actually read the numbers, and can collect the speed data in a quick eye flick (well under 1 second). Again: everyone already tried digital speed readouts in the 1980s. They sucked.
Engineering and innovation create continuous pressure on good user interfaces. The Google homepage is a well-known example from the web of a UI that successfully resisted this pressure to very good effect. (Although even the Google homepage is slowly succumbing.)
Consider something like GPS. The greatest visual interface for GPS directions is none at all. The driver in need of directions should be able to ask for them verbally and receive instructions verbally--that way they can maintain their visual scan. In the age of paper maps, everyone knew it was silly to try to drive and unfold and read a map at the same time...somehow this common wisdom has been forgotten just because we can use pixels now.