Message #1301 From:
TheMachine Date: May 13, 2008 02:32:58 AM
Auto touch-screens that touch back
Sunday, January 20, 2008
The modern electronic car is a feast for the senses.
By Richard Hart
The proliferation of LCD screens on automobile dashboards has created a
problem. Drivers can no longer feel the buttons. You must take your
eyes off the road to point to something on the screen.
The modern electronic car is a feast for the senses. Colorful
screens for the eyes, surround sound for the ears, and, of course, that
new car smell. But the one sense that's missing is touch. The new touch
screens don't touch back.
"And a problem you have is,"
according to Stanford Engineering Design Professor Mark Cutkosky, "in
order to use those functions, you have to look at the screen. Which
makes you have to take your eyes off the road. This is different from
the old cars, where you just had knobs that you could feel -- how to
turn them, and so on."
That concerns auto manufacturers. One of them, Daimler Chrysler, funded
a research project at Stanford University. In it, Professor Cutkosky's
team recorded real drivers in action and then developed one of the
first haptic interfaces. Haptics is the field of touch -- beyond force
feedback -- as a way for humans to interact with machines.
For
example, when I press on what appears to be an ordinary LCD, my finger
feels a firm vibration, assuring me that I've hit the correct arrow
button. It is one of the first commercial applications to come out of
the research labs.
The technology has gotten sophisticated
enough to simulate the feel of a multitude of the first consumer
devices to reach out and touch you back were videogames, and some cell
phones.
You can make your buttons feel like wood or silk, or
rubber. These touch-back screens are designed by SMK, the largest
seller of TV and other remotes for consumer electronics. They're even
putting it into household controls. The next time you and I zap
channels, the TV can zap us back.
The company won't say which
automaker will be the first to use its technology, but you can expect
panels like these in the next model year.
More information:
Mark Cutkosky, Prof. Mechanical Engineering Center for Design Research Stanford University 424 Panama Mall Stanford, CA 94305-2232
By Richard Hart