Microsoft turns your hand into a touchscreen - all you have to do is wear a projector on your shoulder

New: It could be used for checking email, surfing the web or marking paperwork, and will work on any surface

Microsoft researchers have developed the next generation of the Kinect motion sensor - a device which turns any flat surface into a touchscreen.

The experimental sensor tracks movements on anything from a human arm to a wall and makes it into a mobile computer.

In tests users have been able to punch in numbers into a keypad projected onto their hands and write on a virtual ‘notepad’ on a table.

The researchers say it is the first step to one day doing away with the need to carry around a phone or a computer.

Instead users could have what they need projected in front of them and use any flat surface as a workspace.

The device, called OmniTouch, is a wearable camera / laser projection system mounted on the user’s shoulder and connected up to a computer.

It functions in a similar way to Kinect, the motion sensor gadget for the Xbox, in that the camera senses depth and movement.

This allows it to pick up when a user moves their finger in any direction or up and down.

Striking videos uploaded onto YouTube show test subjects pressing a range of buttons projected on their arm.

Pilot: The prototype shoulder-worn system, pictured, tracks the movement of the user's hand

Other clips show one man with a number pad on his hand into which he enters a combination.

Applications could include anything that we currently use a computer for - checking email, surfing the web or possibly talking to friends on Skype.

Currently the camera and the laser are rather chunky but Microsoft and a team from the Carnegie Mellon University, which developed OmniTouch together, say it could one day be ‘the size of a matchbox and as easy to wear as a pendant or a watch’.

In a research paper they say OmniTouch  ‘allows the wearer to use their hands, arms and legs as graphical, interactive surfaces’.

They write: ‘Today’s mobile computers provide omnipresent access to information ... It is undeniable that they have forever changed the way we work, play and interact.

‘However, mobile interaction is far from solved. Diminutive screens and buttons mar the user experience, and otherwise prevent us from realising their full potential.

Hrvoje Benko, a researcher in the Natural Interaction Research group at Microsoft, added: ‘We wanted to capitalize on the tremendous surface area the real world provides.

Science: The equipment senses depth and hand movement to work, pictured

‘The surface area of one hand alone exceeds that of typical smart phones. 

‘Tables are an order of magnitude larger than a tablet computer. 

‘If we could appropriate these ad-hoc surfaces in an on-demand way, we could deliver all of the benefits of mobility while expanding the user’s interactive capability.’