DynaButtons: Shape-Shifting Buttons with Analog Control

On the off chance you've seen enough new music tech gear, here is an interesting tidbit from elsewhere, which may one day be relevant. These DynaButtons appear to be a futuristic opportunity for music tech manufacturers and independent designers to make some truly unique control surfaces. They have the ability to change shape in an almost prganic way, and their haptic response, leading to some pretty eye-opening interactions.

While mechanical buttons are ubiquitous, their haptic response is fxed, reducing interface flexibility and precluding an avenue for rich feedback. Here, we describe a new type of dynamic button, or DynaButton, which can vary its visual and haptic response via rapid shape change. To achieve this, we made several advances in the performance of embedded electroosmotic pumps: we increased core pump speed more than 300% over prior work, demonstrated closed-loop control, and investigated analog output that varies in response to pressure and force inputs. We validated our system with a physical characterization and performed a series of stimuli recognition studies to validate the expressivity and discriminability of three regimes of button interaction.

Any ideas what they could be used for ?? 

From Future Interfaces Group

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