One of the main gripes most people have had with today’s smartphones is the fact that touchscreens are almost impossible to use without looking. Unless it’s some huge button that you can spot at the corner of your eye and easily hit, most of the time you’re forced to look at the screen even when performing simple actions such as answering a call. Well a Japanese designer has decided to make that problem a thing of the past. He came up with the idea for a Tangible User Interface (TUI) that uses a flexible screen surface that makes z-axis movements to create shapes of buttons and switches to make touchscreen phones easier to use. The concept smartphone he came up with, Fiil, looks very elegant and functional at the same time. In addition to being able to its surface, this cellphone can also be charged using solar power which sounds like a great idea since a constantly shifting phone will probably use a lot of energy. It’d be interesting to see if such a phone will ever hit the stores. Perhaps a couple of years from now? In the meantime, hit the break to feast your eyes on more pictures of the device.
Filed in . Read more about Concept, Smartphones and Touch.