RE: [UACCESS-L] Apple Introduces the Incredible Shape Shifting DeviceInterface - Patently Apple

["Robert Carnegie" <Robert.Carnegie@seemis.gov.uk>]

From: uaccess-l-admin@trace.wisc.edu
[mailto:uaccess-l-admin@trace.wisc.edu] On Behalf Of Gregg Vanderheiden
Sent: 24 July 2010 22:51
To: Uaccess-L
Subject: [UACCESS-L] Apple Introduces the Incredible Shape Shifting
Device Interface - Patently Apple

> Check this out
> 
> http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2010/06/
> apple-introduces-the-incredible-shape-shifting-device-interface.html

Just for curiosity: How much of this is achievable currently?  And how
well does it work?  Hypothetically, when can I buy a tactile panel that
displays Microsoft Windows etched onto the surface according to light
and dark display - with or without a visual component - and responsive
to touch, but not to lightly stroking?

They show a thing with layers performing the different functions, but I
would guess that it would work better to have an array of little stubs
that the device can push in and out, that it can feel you pressing on
and maybe pushing sideways too, and each stub also containing one or
more visual pixels.  Alternatively, there are physically flexible
display designs now, but I don't know if they're compatible with this.

I assume that electrically maintaining the physical state of the display
surface will use a lot of power, which would be unsuitable for a battery
operated device.  But if they have something like e paper that receives
a state change and keeps it without needing a continuous electrical
input, that might be affordable.

A display whose elements can push up and down separately might not need
more than that to function as a visible display.  If lit from the side,
the elements of the screen raised or lowered will be visible with good
eyesight, and also if the sides, not the fronts, of the elements, are
coloured white in one direction and black in the other, perhaps.

As far as the patent goes, which I haven't read and don't recommend,
what comes to mind for me is the old type of car radio set with a button
for each radio station.  You press a button, it stays down, the other
buttons pop up.  And the button that I push in to start my dish washing
machine, when it's finished, it pops out by itself.  What I'm saying is
that these things have been done before.

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