Because we're telling you right now, some of this stuff borders on magic ...

Cellphones define our times in the way that cars defined the early 20th century: They're the clearest, most tangible sign that we truly live in the Future. Impressive new cellphone technologies are being developed each week, and there's no telling what wonderful procrastination possibilities our portable speak-boxes will have in a few years.

6 Touchscreens With the Texture of Fur, Sand or Anything Else

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

Modern cellphone technology offers all manner of audiovisual achievements, and even the ever-elusive Smell-a-Vision seems bound to make an appearance sooner or later. Yet there's one sense that even the most accomplished smartphone is unable to stimulate: touch. Sure, the manufacturers try, but at the end of the day, the vibration function is just a buzzer and the touchscreen is just a hunk of glass that you tap while it autocorrects your words into nonsense. But what if they made the touch feedback system so good that the screen under your fingers would turn into fur, or sand, or brick? That shit isn't science, it's witchcraft.

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

But Science, maintaining careful eye contact, courteously flips that statement the bird. Because not only do they have the technology all figured out, but it's totally going to hit the market within a few years.



You could be TouchSkyping your grandpa by 2015.

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

In fact, there are two different ways of achieving the seemingly impossible. A company called Immersion is developing a more sophisticated version of the vibration function. Using a set of advanced, localized vibrations, the technology is able to manipulate your sense of touch to make you think that the smooth touchscreen has ridges and bumps. Add a correct set of vibrations to a picture of, say, a tiled wall, and you'll be able to feel all the bumps and cuts of the surface as if it were real.