Chances are you use some kind of smartphone in your everyday life. Most smartphones are now just a touchscreen with maybe a physical home button. It works well for most tasks, but some apps, especially games, are still at a disadvantage over the lack of physical buttons. Is there a solution to this, or will we just have to get used to virtual keyboards and buttons?

Tactus Technology, a touch interface developer, showed off a new technology at CES 2013 that allows the formation of physical buttons on a touchscreen. It’s kind of hard to explain, but it’s absolutely magical when you see it in action. Check it out:

Tactus Technology – CES 2013 from Tactus Technology Inc. on Vimeo.

Tactus’ technology is absolutely mind blowing. It might not seem like that big of a deal, but just watching those buttons immediately form and then retract back into a flat touch service is the kind of magic that we don’t see in tech that much anymore. Not to mention, the technology would drastically improve the usability of many apps.

Of course, magic isn’t real and there’s a very complicated explanation on how Tactus was able to achieve its results. You can read all about it in the company’s white paper that details all the technological research that went into bringing the physical button back to the touchscreen. It’s utterly fascinating and definitely worth a read.