KINECT PLUS PROJECTOR: On-The-Go Touch Interface

For all of its well-publicized stumbles, one of Microsoft's major victories is the Kinect, which turns the human body into a user interface. While it's been used primarily for Xbox video games, the Kinect technology package can do considerably more.

The OmniTouch project—a joint project between Microsoft Research and the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University—mounts a rig containing small pico projector and a Kinect-like 3D scanner on the user’s shoulder...

...The projector displays graphical images onto virtually any surface, while the 3D scanner’s depth-sensing capabilities transform the projection into an interactive, multi-touch-enabled input—and, thanks to some technical trickery, there’s no special calibration or training required.

You can imagine such a system projecting a full-sized QWERTY keyboard on a random flat service to allow faster keying on, say, a tablet computer.


Hat tip: BadBlue Tech News.