By Although touchscreens have been around for many years now, people haven’t been able to get a feeling from using them, other than the cold, smooth feel of glass or plastic. Senseg wants to change that, using their new E-sense technology. Employing what they call “tixels”, or tactile pixels, Senseg has developed a screen that not only responds to your touch, but also gives you different sensations, according to what is displayed.
E-sense technology can emulate any surface or texture
The idea is not new, haptic technology has been around for a few years now and with it, manufacturers can produce touchscreens which react by vibrating when touched. But in this case, it’s the device which reacts physically to the user’s touch. With the help of tixels, the device can actually produce true sensations at your fingertips by electric stimulation. The tixels produce electric fields a few millimeters above the screen’s surface which, when entered by the user’s finger, can create different sensations which the user can feel on his skin. Also, tixels are highly durable and versatile, and can be incorporated in most touch-based surfaces, whatever the size, shape or form. There is no actual electric current transmitted to the user, so it is completely safe.
By stimulating the nerve endings in your finger tips, the screen will actually give you the impression of touching whatever is displayed on screen. Obviously you can’t get the sensation of grabbing or grasping something, but tixels can emulate any texture or surface. Imagine playing with your virtual cat or dog, and petting them. You could actually feel their fur on your hand. The technology would have other applications besides entertainment. The visually impaired could use E-sense enabled screens to read Braille, for instance, or people buying clothes online could preview the fabric by “touching” to see what it’s like.
Things are already in motion it seems, as Senseg has partnered up with Toshiba, with many other manufacturers expected to join in. Demos are available at Senseg’s offices, in Helsinki and Tokyo, so we can expect E-sense enabled devices to be available in the next few years.
