Electrostatic feedback: how future touchscreens might shock us

Toshiba and Senseng have developed a prototype of an electrostatic variant of vibrotactile feedback for touchscreens – in other words, they’ve developed a way for users of smartphones, tablets and other touchscreens to get tactile feedback from their devices using static (not that we’d be shocked or electrocuted of course).

Here’s how HowStuffWorks describes vibrotactile feedback:

What we’re talking about here is electrotactile stimulation for sensory augmentation or substitution, an area of study that involves using encoded electric current to represent sensory information — information that a person cannot receive through the traditional channel — and applying that current to the skin, which sends the information to the brain. The brain then learns to interpret that sensory information as if it were being sent through the traditional channel for such data.

Senseng and Toshiba demoed the technology back in August in the video below. What do you think about this for your future phone?