The future of smartphones is looking increasingly innovative, with the potential for physical keyboards on touching screens thanks to a breakthrough from the Future Interfaces Group (FIG) of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). This type of technology, named Flat Panel Haptics, has been in the works at CMU for the past 15 years. However, it is only now with the development of an Embedded Electro-Osmotic Pump (EEOPs) that the FIG has been able to create a Flat Panel Haptics board five millimeters thick.
The EEOPs technology works by manipulating a special type of pumping fluid with an electrical current that runs through the stack between a reservoir of the fluid on the bottom and a flexible surface on top. This allows the pumps to inflate a rigid button up to five millimeters in height on the touchscreen surface. A video displays the functionality of this technology which has been explained in a recent paper from the university. The researchers used soft silicone as the top layer in their initial prototypes, though it is possible that current AMOLED screens are flexible enough for transforming portions of the screen into a keyboard.
This creative aspect of Flat Panel Haptics has a range of potential applications from gaming to help for the visually impaired. Tactile feedback from physical buttons can create a more immersive gaming experience, and keyboards can be used for navigation for those with visual impairments together with AI assistance like Siri.
However, there remain some challenges such as the potential bulkiness posed by using this technology, as well as durability indictors and the power requirements of the technology. It is currently unknown how much interest phone companies will take in this technology, as the idea of a physical keyboard on a touch screen has not always been successful. However, the Flat Panel Haptics board developed by CMU and the FIG team could change this attitude.
The Future Interfaces Group of Carnegie Mellon University is an interdisciplinary research group created in 2003, carrying out research projects on emerging interactive technologies, both hardware and software, including Augmented Reality, mobile interfaces and wearable computing. Professor Chris Harrison is the current lab director who, together with a wide range of academic researchers, has helped to further the field of computing through research projects at the lab.
The person behind the development of this technology is Chris Harrison from the Future Interfaces Group of Carnegie Mellon University. Harrison is a professor at the university and the Lab Director of the Future Interfaces Group. Harrison has been working on this type of technology since 2008, making great strides on the development of the EEOPs and the Flat Panel Haptics board. The EEOPs, or Embedded Electro-Osmotic Pump, is the technology which inflates the buttons on the touchscreen, allowing the creation of the QWERTY keyboard. Harrison and the team at CMU have continued work on the project and demonstrated potential applications for the technology.
