There’s a reason why touchscreen devices stay a certain size – creating large, complicated touch displays are prohibitively expensive. Scientists from Carnegie Mellon Human Interaction Institute however, has found a way to make large touchscreens a reality on literally any surface you think of.
They do this using a device called Omnitouch, a device that they developed in cooperation with Microsoft. Omnitouch uses a small, pico projector and a short range depth camera (similar to a Kinect) to project images to with full multi-touch capability on whatever surface you can think of. Right now the system isn’t as refined as we would like, with the device being a proof of concept gadget as of now, but if they manage to shrink the technology to a point where it wouldn’t be so bulky (the device rests on a user’s shoulder and is pretty noticeable) then they could be on to something big. There’s a video of the device working on YouTube so you’ll better visualize what we’re talking about.
Source: Tom’s Guide