Lucid Touch

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2319793,00.asp

Researchers believe that one of the emerging technologies that will change this world will be LucidTouch. Microsoft has been looking into the idea for several years now once they realized that there was a huge amount of wasted space on our handheld devices (on the back). Patrick Baudisch of Microsoft first began to formulate this idea when he realized he couldn’t see past his fingers on his touch screen phone, which made things more difficult for him. Most recently Baudisch has been focusing his efforts on maximizing the screen size on things like cellular phone technology. The biggest problem is that we always want our technology to be smaller, however this means that there is also smaller screens and therefore less surface area to work with.

Baudisch also realizes that we need to be able to see our fingers on the back of the device, so he’s created a “see-through pseudo-transparency” system that allows you to see what you are doing as you use the back side of your technology. A great part about this is any size hand, and any size finger can use this technology without blocking the screen. A colored dot on the screen will point out exactly where the finger will be in contact with the screen, which will prevent any confusions. Prototypes are still using a camera-boom attachment that points at the fingers and then renders the actions on a screen. According to research, a simple optical sensor will do the trick as long as they can provide enough data to indicate the location of the fingertips.

Baudisch is just starting with his dream of the LucidTouch. He believes that this technology could be used in gaming devices and even helps the disabled! It’s quite obvious that this technology could mean some big things for the future. It’s just a matter of when the researchers at Microsoft can create a prototype that will be effective enough to go to market. Could you imagine something like this? It would be leaps and bounds in the technology world.