Nokia Liquid Phone Concept

One of the biggest criticisms of the iPhone and iPod Touch is the lack of tactile feedback. The touch screen sure is fancy, but it seems like more trouble than it's worth when all you want is to reach into your jacket pocket in the winter with your gloves on and skip to the next track. For the finger contact problem, you can buy iPhone gloves. But as for the finding the buttons without sight thing, the solution gets a little more complicated. We'r wondering about the feasibility of these liquid-filled buttons on this concept Nokia phone...

This Nokia concept from designer Rune Larsen tries to right this wrong by using a small pump to fill a button beneath the screen that gives our fingers something to feel and press.

But the thing we're not sure about is the feasibility of having the buttons change shape and positions. The best thing about a touch screen (the only practical reason for having one, in our opinion) is to have the option to switch between different key layouts and different keys on each screen. It looks great, but we're just not sure about how that works!

[ via Yanko Design ]

Comments (1)

I'm pretty sure the buttons would be based on some sort of ferromagnetic fluid, so raising button patterns or really any sort of pattern would just require a slight current.

posted by alinear on October 19th 2008 at 1:27pm
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