Touch screens are versatile and easy to use, but the slick surface isn’t great for some tasks—typing more than a quick e-mail, for instance—and becomes pretty useless when your eyes are occupied with other tasks.
With all this in mind, researchers hailing mainly from the Technische Universität Berlin in Germany built a prototype of a touch screen with a layer of gel atop it that can change from soft to stiff when heat is applied—making it possible to create temporary buttons in all kinds of shapes that needn’t be defined in advance, which users can feel and use to interact with the display.
Image: http://www.technologyreview.com
