Patent Watch; September 2011; Scientific American Magazine; by Adam Piore; 1 Page(s)

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.