It’s great that your smartphone allows you to dial a cell number or adjust the volume on your favorite song just by tapping the screen, but it’s something of a one-sided relationship. No matter where you tap, it feels the same; no tactile feedback whatsoever. Don’t you ever hanker for something more?

A proposed interface from Verizon would change the smartphone experience. The idea, described in patent No. 7,952,498, is to create a mechanical apparatus below the screen that could elevate discrete portions of the surface in the shape of any graphic displayed in the pixel grid. Need to call home? A keypad would sprout in the shape of phone buttons. Want to skip a track on that Beatles album? Pause and fast-forward controls would rise up. Not only would these elevated portions provide more sensory stimulation, they would make keys easier to distinguish from one another, cutting back on mistakes. “What you would feel is a subtle, raised area on the screen,” says George Higa, a user-interface designer at Verizon who was recently granted the patent. The patent does not specify what Verizon would use to elevate the buttons on the screen, but  “technology moves so quickly, it could be any number of things,” Higa says. 

Researchers have demonstrated the ability to provide tactile feedback with an array of pins, air jets and an electric current. “Haptic feedback,” or feedback that is based on the sense of touch, “is the future of computing interfaces,” says Allison M. Okamura, a professor of mechanical engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

But creating that feedback on a pocket-size gadget remains challenging. Researchers at Northwestern University have designed a device called the TPaD that can ultrasonically vibrate the screen, making delineated portions feel “slippery” and allowing programmers to modulate the friction on different parts of the screen, Okamura explains. But last she knew, the smallest of these devices was six inches high and a couple of inches thick.“While it would be terrific to have a device like the one [Verizon] describes, I just don’t know how it would fit into a phone,” Okamura says.

This article was originally published with the title Patent Watch.

5 Comments

1. 1. tharter 11:56 AM 8/27/11

   So, lets get this straight. Verizon is being issued a patent for an idea that A) is by no means original to them, and B) that they have no idea how to actually implement. This is an invention? I'm glad our patent system works so well, this will definitely stimulate innovation!

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2. 2. adamsunny in reply to tharter 06:26 PM 8/27/11

   Unfortunately patents are, like many things, subject to wealth. This Verizon patent likely cost more than $10,000. Most hobbyist inventors don't have that kind of money, especially for a hypothetical model that isn't even characterized by a prototype. The silver lining to the current patent system is that it's easy to find loopholes - as soon as Verizon markets this technology (or I should say IF they market it), even a slight alteration to the design avoids the legal binds of the patent, making for cheap ripoffs. I think of a patent not so much as an exclusive right to a new technology, but rather the opportunity to be the first to offer and sell it.

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3. 3. Daniel35 07:24 PM 9/4/11

   I was trying to invent better keyboards well before cell phones came out, and yes, the price of patents was a major inhibition. But also, I'm not very good at business dealings. I still can't see typing with one hand or two thumbs on a tiny keyboard and looking at a tiny screen (though more to come on the latter). Yes, later I also thought about electrical stimulation as tactile feedback.
   
   We're still using keyboards designed for early mechanical typewriters, and not just with QWERTY. Have you noticed that on a standard keyboard the CFT row, for instance, isn't at the same angle as the NHY row? That's because each key had a bar, parallel to bars from other keys, going into the innards of the typewriter. If the above rows were the at same angles, B and Y, for instance, would be in line and the bars would conflict.
   
   Keyboards used to have discreet key switches which could be separated from the circuit board and mounted as one liked, connected to a "keyboard interpreter" with wires. I experimented with several designs this way, but was limited to what the interpreter could handle. I suspect they changed that partly to make it harder for amateurs to experiment.
   
   My ideal went, and still does, toward "wearable computers". My preferred keyboard today would be a separate keypad for each hand, each with rows of four character keys for main fingers, three for the pinky, and two or three "modifier keys" (like Shift, Ctrl and Alt) for each thumb. The latter keys could be pushed simultaneously, giving many possible combination and meanings for character keys.
   
   The keypads would be mounted on straps that could go around the lower thighs when seated, or around the waste when standing. The keypads would necessarily swivel on the straps for easy use in both positions.
   
   Small screens, two for potential 3D use, would be part of a headset, worn on the sides of the head and viewed in partially-silvered magnifying mirrors. Turning screen brightness down would allow seeing the real world around you.
   
   These ideas were thought up at a time when the rest of a reasonable computer would have to be carried in a back pack, the Internet wasn't known, at least to me, and "cell" would more likely refer to a prison. They may still be patentable. Feel free, if some big company doesn't get there first.
   

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4. 4. bucketofsquid 05:12 PM 9/14/11

   Forget the keyboards. Voice commands are all I need. If a voice interpreter controlled a selection area I wouldn't need a touch screen and wouldn't need a keyboard either. This strikes me as dinosaur computing. I think Daniel35 is further into the future of computing than this small screen tactile response idea.

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5. 5. CristianF in reply to tharter 08:28 PM 10/8/11

   I agree with you 100%. Patents should be granted for actual implementations, requiring detail and work upon which someone else cannot stumble by accident. Patents should not be granted for general ideas that most educated persons in the field can come up with. In Verizon's case the idea is not original, and the implementation is non existent. This patent is ridiculous and only points to the degradation of our patent system which used to foster invention, not give big corporations weapons to fight each other in the patent wars.
   
   While Scientific American is not necessarily endorsing the views in these articles they should do a better job at selecting obvious blunders. I think this article qualifies under that denomination.
   
   Respectfully,
   Cristian Francu
   

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