Multi-touch interfaces are all the rage at the moment.

Patrick Baudisch, from Microsoft, and others are exploring the problem of using a touch interface on a small screen, such as a mobile phone, where your fingers obscure what you are actually trying to do.

Through a joint venture between Microsoft Research and Mitsubishi Research Labs (MERL) LucidTouch has emerged. This device uses a combination of technology that gives it the illusion of being transparent. It allows you to use all 10 fingers via touch surfaces both on the front and the back of the device.

Watch the prototype in action in the following video

Details of this project can be found at

http://research.microsoft.com/users/baudisch/projects/lucidtouch/index.html

other projects by Patrick Baudisch can be found at

http://www.patrickbaudisch.com/

Footnote:

Reminds me a little of the "Transparent PC Screen"

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In another project from Johnny Chung Lee

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/wii/

find out how to use the wiimote and a head-mounted sensor bar to track the position of your head.

Using the infrared camera in the Wii remote and a head mounted sensor bar (two IR LEDs), you can accurately track the location of your head and render view dependent images on the screen. This effectively transforms your display into a portal to a virtual environment. The display properly reacts to head and body movement as if it were a real window creating a realistic illusion of depth and space.

watch the video to see it in action

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3DIcon is currently developing 3D projection and display technologies that produce full colour 360 degree volumetric images.

http://www.3dicon.net

One of the possible applications envisaged for this technology could be the implementation of an Air Traffic Control system that allows a user to view the entire 3D airspace and its contents in real-time.

CSpace

http://www.3dicon.net/technology/cspace.html

The research team, working at the University of Oklahoma, is developing CSpace a Volumetric Imaging System which will use a clear volumetric medium within which an invisible nano-size material is dispersed. A 3D image is rendered when laser beams directed into the image space excite the nano-materials to emit visible light to construct the image.

So far, the team has been able to create nano-size crystals which exhibit green fluorescence and have been able to embed these particles within a clear host material.

3D-SVD

http://www.3dicon.net/technology/svd.html

3D-SVD (swept volume display) is another technology currently under development. In this case, a three-dimensional image is formed by illuminating a rapidly moving circular screen sweeping a spherical volume. Voxels are rendered at precise locations within the volume over a period of time resulting in a 3D image due to persistence of vision.

Further work will look at improving the resultant image so that it appears more solid with negligible flicker.

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… just to complete the round-up of micro-projector news, iView Limited is using the LightView LDP-SVGA microdisplay from Displaytech for their pico-projector.

http://www.iviewdisplay.com

http://www.displaytech.com/

Recent articles suggest the market for these projectors will begin with the embedding of pico-projectors into mobile communication devices, cell phones, digital still and video cameras in 2008-2009 and is a fast growing market sector.

Displaytech has announced that a number of companies are developing pico-projectors incorporating their microdisplay technology.

3M have announced their LED illuminated micro-projector which is designed for use in a mobile phone or other personal electronic device.

Approximately the size of an earpiece, the 3M mobile projection engine uses an advanced Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCOS) imager in conjunction with proprietary 3M optics technology to project an image at 40 inches, or larger, to VGA resolution.

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