Imaginary Phone turns your hand into a touchscreen

If you think the magical multi-touch technology powering your iPhone is cool, then you really need to take a look at what the researchers at the Hasso-Plattner Institute have been getting up to.

How does an Imaginary Smartphone sound? Technology developed at the Hasso-Plattner Institute in Germany literally turns your palm into a touch screen smartphone.

They have developed an ingenious camera tracking technology powered by a wearable depth camera that allows users to  use their palm like a touch screen while inputs are transferred to the phone over Wi-Fi. Amazingly the entire process does not require any visual or physical feedback, only depending on your muscle memory and your personal ability to operate the phone blindly.

Previously, Massachusetts Institute of Technology had also unveiled a similar 'Sixth Sense' gestural interface technology - a gesture based interface for controlling mobile phones through a user's palm. In this technology, a camera was used for tracking gestures but we could also see a user interface popping up on the palm using a small projector.

Is this the next step in the evolution of touch screen interfaces?

Watch the videos below to see the technology used by Hasso-Plattner Institute and MIT.