There’s a new technology on the market. Imagine a touch screen tablet with keyboard buttons that pop up on command and then disappear just as fast. Well stop imagining. Tactus, a Silicon Valley startup company has made such a thing. Here’s the June 11, 2012 story and here’s the story from the demonstrations at the recent CES convention in Las Vegas.
It uses a technology called microfluidics, and that’s all I know about it. It’s being referred to as “the tablet that turns itself lumpy,” probably the worst possible way to describe it. Lumpy? That’s a 50-year-old technophobic editor speaking, right there. The one who can’t get his iPhone to put all the things into one folder thingy. But it’s cool technology, nonetheless.
I remember when touchscreens started getting popular, and now they’re mainstream. And when Minority Report came out, with Tom Cruise, he put on those gloves and moved windows around on clear computer screens. That happens now, too, but we don’t need the gloves. And in Total Recall (the first one) when Arnold sits down and the newspaper is just a digital tablet-like device, THAT’S NOW! Man, I’ve got to start re-watching those ’70s and ’80s sci-fi flicks. Otherwise I’ll be left wishing I had three hands, baby.
