Audio Video News

In a few years, your projector-based home theater could literally be at your fingertips. Funai is working on projector technology that responds to touch: you wave your finger over the image, and the projector senses exactly where you're pointing.

The system uses Nippon Signal's MEMS scanner to detect when an object like a finger is pointing at something in the projection. A sensor tracks the intensity of the light being reflected by the screen, so that when an object gets in the way of the projection and the intensity changes, the projector understands it. As the technology develops, this could lead to motion-based projector controls, letting users wave their hands over the screen and navigate menus, change settings, and otherwise interface with the system as if they had a mouse or a remote.

It's still just a prototype, only just unveiled at CEATAC JAPAN 2009. Still, Funai is optimistic, and says that the technology could be given commercial applications as early as next year.

— Will Greenwald

[Source: Tech-On via Gizmodo]

[Photo Credit: Tech-On]