You may have seen the new tactile keyboard that rises from the surface of the tablet or phone screen in recent reports from the CES2013 event in the USA. We believe this could have great applications for people with visual impairments.

Tactus Technology is the developer of a new tactile user interface for touch-screen devices. Tactus provides a new dimension of user interface with a fundamentally unique solution: application-controlled, completely transparent physical buttons that rise up from the touch-screen surface on demand. With the buttons enabled, users can push and type or rest their fingers as they would with any physical button or keyboard. When the buttons are disabled, they recede into the screen, becoming invisible and leaving a smooth, seamless flat touch-screen with maximum viewing area.

While touch-screens provide a versatile user experience, they provide no tactile experience for consumers. Vibration haptics and similar solutions try to simulate a sensation of touch, but all are "feedback" technologies, vibrating only after touching the screen (even if they are touched in the wrong place or by mistake). In contrast, Tactus' technology creates real, physical buttons, where users can rest their fingers on the buttons, as on a mechanical keyboard, and input data by pressing down on the keys. Tactus is the only solution to both "orientation" and "confirmation" problems that are inherent in touch screens.

You can read more about the technology and how it works in their technical white paper, "Taking Touch Screen Interfaces into a New Dimension".

The Tactile Layer™ technology easily integrates with today's touch-screen based devices (smart phones, tablets, personal navigation systems, gaming devices, etc.) by simply replacing the front layer of the display stack, known as the "lens", "window" or "cover glass". The dynamic Tactile Layer component is the same thickness as the layer it replaces and requires no change to the underlying display or touch sensor.

To view a video of the screen in action click here