A cool new technology being developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Microsoft Corp., promises to revolutionize the way we communicate, play music and games, and browse the web - by turning the human skin to a touchscreen!

'Skinput' comprises of a mini projector that transfers the keyboard onto the human palm, which can be tapped just like any touchscreen. A sophisticated sensor recognizes which part of the palm is being tapped, and then figures out what keyboard button that area represents.

The sensor is able to recognize the differences in the palm areas because every skin location sounds different when tapped due to varying bone densities and filtering effects from soft tissues and joints.

The prototype which has been tested by twenty people has shown an accuracy of 99.5% and also tested well on skin areas other than the palm. When the user is away from the sensor, Skinput applies wireless technology like Bluetooth, to transmit the commands to the device being controlled.

The scientists say they picked the human body as a projector, because we have roughly two square feet of unused canvas that we walk around with all the time - and with devices getting increasingly smaller and more difficult to navigate, it made perfect sense. They envision music players of the future with no buttons, since we will all be using our skin as touchscreens - Sounds good to us!

sources:physo.org, dailymail.co.uk