While the smartphone market has largely become a world of flat touch-slabs in an on-going specification war, news broke today of a new innovation in touchscreen technology. Tactus is a company developing a 'dynamic touchscreen' based on microfluidic technology. Going beyond the touch technology as seen in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Tactus' screens are able to create raised areas, for example you can see raised domes over the letters on a virtual QWERTY keyboard. There is no mention whether or not the user can depress these dynamic raised areas or not.

Tactus say its technology will ship in devices in 2013 – we'll believe it when we see it. However, in a world of flat drab touch-slabs, we need some hardware innovation, something different. While Nokia did this to an extent with the Lumia 800's / N9's polycarbonate body and curved screen, that only helped to make an aesthetic and emotional connection to the device, there was no new technology.