Touchscreens with physical tactile buttons demo by Tactus Technology (videos inside)

[tygamr]

Originally Posted by Teknikal

My guess it's just a hint that you wouldn't be able to use gorilla glass or really any type of glass at all with this screen. So it's unlikely to ever be more than a gimmick until Samsung's flexible displays at least.

This is true. The touchscreen shown in Tactus's demonstrations is exactly the same as other touchscreens except for the outermost layer (known as the protector, cover, window, etc.), which is what Gorilla Glass is. It's likely made out of a strong, durable, and flexible plastic/rubber, or the screen would probably wear out quicly. An advantage to non-glass touchscreens is that they don't shatter nearly as easily, but a possible disadvantage is they may scratch more easily.

[MidianGTX]

I think I'd rather stick with glass for now. Still not convinced this stuff is durable enough... I foresee plenty of problems and complaints during its first few iterations. Not to mention... I actually like typing on a flat surface, I think it's novel and cool.

[nightc1]

The last video, yeah, you can see the buttons before they inflate. So I think over time that outer layer has got to wear out from the constant stretching and make the surface where the buttons are feel bumpy. It's a novel idea, but I 3 star'd every level in Mikey Shorts & Mikey Shorts Halloween ... so I don't really think it's necessary at all. Maybe it could improve some aspects of gameplay, but I think the surface has to be pre-designed to inflate those specific pockets... so I don't think this would be useful for gaming since every dev could want different control options.

[lord-sam]

If nothing else, it will be an awesome advance for Braille enabled devices for blind people.