 One of the big problems we're facing in our digital technology today is that so much is screen based that we have no tactile feedback. I've complained on my show I've got a Tesla and I can't change the air vents without using a screen which means I have to look away from the view of the car the way I want to be driving and I don't think that's very safe and it looks like Tanvis may have a solution for that so I'm talking to Greg Topol of Tanvis. Tell us about this. So exactly right so what we're doing is we want to make an experience that is more tangible than just a vision-based input device so we've created a touch screen that allows you to feel what you see so as you just said one of the major applications that we've worked with and actually just announced a partnership with Inelux today is solving the problem of the distracted driver the idea of who's the partnership with again Inelux so Inelux makes displays for they're both a tier one and tier two for automotive manufacturers so we are working on a couple of automotive programs and they are tier one so wait a minute so touch screen but I can I'm going to be able to feel this yeah yeah yeah so actually visually this is a good example here so what we can do here is this circle right there is where it activates the knob and this is audio as well as video so I'm going to describe a little bit we see a little knob on screen yep we see a knob on the screen and there's a little button there's a little circle that that is where the active places I can feel where that active places through a little bit of texture can I feel that oh yeah so it's the screen is sort of jiggling when I got near the knob near the near that button that's right so well I should just to clarify there is no moving parts so what that come on I know it and there's more there is actually no moving parts what we're actually doing is we're calling electro adhesion we actually create an electric field underneath your finger it attracts your skin to the screen it's nothing more really yeah yeah so it's so it's an electrical impulse that's coming to my finger it's a capacitance we're actually yeah so we're attracting your skin we're not putting any energy into you we're just attracting you that's all that's great really is a good idea so the idea though is that I want to take a vision-based knob and make it so that I can actually tactically interact with it rather than have to do a visual you just said it 15 20 years ago we used to be able to navigate our screen through the sense of touch I could glance down and find kind of roughly where I wanted to be but the finer tuning of finding that control turn the volume radio station exactly turning it once all that used to be able to do while keeping my eyes on the road actually yeah a lot of those actually even had like little bumps a little detent so you'd know when you when you turn it up that's right you've got to try this Steve's doing the recording but I'm gonna have him reach in to do it too that's right when you're on it you absolutely can feel where that is that's really interesting that that it's capacitance so this is not a standard screen it this is the technology that you're selling this is both a multi touch sensor and a haptic touch screen so that's is our this is our solution and what's beautiful about is that because there's no moving parts we are completely independent of size or shape so when screens start to get curved it makes no difference to us oh okay okay say that that's kind of a harmony of our technology so regardless if it's a small little screen or a large display any kind of haptic response will feel exactly the same in any case interesting interesting so can you do more than just a little knob button there oh we can do anything you want so this is probably a little different than maybe what you're expecting you to let baby face this baby how does a beard feel so I can feel his beard when I'm feeling stuff oh wherever I go over his beard I can feel it so it's even I were touching it guys we're both touching it and feeling it well actually so this is our older generation technology where only one can feel at a time our gen 3 our new one is multi touch multi so he was stealing some touch for me so can I shave this face now well you got to have some shaving cream first so I don't shave my face okay and now I'm gonna shave and I'm gonna actually feel what it feels like to shave so where are you shaving now is smooth and where I haven't shaving yet it's still oh wow okay that's crazy I'm shaving some poor guy's nose right now sure so actually I'm actually I'm happy to say that we actually won a silver lion award from the Collio's awards a couple years ago on this application yeah interesting okay so no I want to do dinosaur reveal go for the dinosaur reveal we love this experience this is a great example of it of a application maybe for museums so obviously everything in museum is supposed to be interactive supposed to be engaging what more way of engaging rather than just being a visual now you tactically can feel that sand being removed and now you can feel those dinosaur balls oh wow so Steve has just used a paintbrush to a little brush to get the sand off the dinosaur I want to touch a dinosaur Steve is touching the dinosaur so this might be interesting for accessibility as well you're absolutely right so accessibility is obviously a major problem for touchscreens obviously the idea is that you have a vision-based input device with someone who has no vision so we can actually make it so that those textures for text or visuals obviously voice recognition is a big part of how people with vision impairment interact with it but the problem is they still don't know what's on the screen we can make you do Braille you cannot do Braille but we can change what Braille is so Braille actually puts into your finger we're just doing friction so they're two different ways of doing it but sure we can change Braille that's a long road big goal long long game long game I didn't lead with it so I did walk you into okay we got music control oh that was the one we had what was the oh the texture catalog was really fun so there's a screen that says choppy and it's basically got some some vertical lines and I can feel those with my finger and then grainy is more like the sand we're on and then fine is a bunch of little tiny lines and then wavy oh and wavy is actually that actually feels like it's got depth going in and out try this one Steve this this wavy one oh you played with wavy already so the interesting thing about that wavy is a good example of what happens when you can do a little friction change we're actually are changing your acceleration deceleration all across the screen by a little friction but it feels like you're going up and down these bumps what absolutely does all right this is very cool so this is not an end end user product this is a v2v product that you work with the your your main focus is going to be car screens so we're starting automotive it's actually one of our major focuses right now but certainly with Mima monitors we have a digital sign solution this 10 screen can be used for retail restaurants museums and so we're actively promoting that as well but the the main focus that we have a company's automotive it's a major opportunity where we can really solve a problem number one being a distracted drivers and number two these screens getting larger and curved our technology works right along with those shapes and sizes that's the saving lives category that's that's big stuff that's big stuff that's the big stuff this is very cool so if someone wanted to see this they won't get to touch it if they look at it on the web but where would they go to see your technology well there's actually a couple places so we've we've been in some museums on the past but so right now they're actually currently as we speak today at the California Academy of Sciences we actually have two displays that are being shown there but I would expect a little bit later this year you're going to start to see some different applications but but of course ultimately we want to see this in a car very soon. Is there a website that you can go to to see yourself? Of course www.tambus.co we are selling a dev kit so if you want to go ahead and buy it and try for yourself you can do that and so we have an SDK that allows you to create your own textures and all sorts of fun things. That's crazy so with the SDK though you need a device as well. Well that's what comes along so for for the for but when you purchase it you actually get this device right here this MIMA monitor product along with their SDK and API and you're off the races. Oh man that's fun that's very cool so it's tambus.co. Thank you very much Greg this is fantastic. Absolute pleasure.