We’ve seen multitouch gestures on smartphones and tablets, and they require glass panels that are compatible. But what if we can have multitouch on almost anything, even air, making it possible at everywhere?

A group of students from Texas A&M intend to do just that, with the invention of ZeroTouch. It’s a seemingly empty picture frame that lets you turn any surface into an interactive touchscreen. It might not look like much, but ZeroTouch is packing a series of pulsing LEDs and infrared sensors that turn that blank space into a highly sensitive surface.

Basically, the strategically placed LEDs cover the open area in a sheet of invisible light, or spidey web threads. When a hand or stylus enters the picture (or lack thereof), those beams are interrupted, providing cues to a piece of software that tracks the object’s movement — and Walla, touchscreen on the air.

Of course, this won’t be around for quite some time, but this makes Tom Cruise’s Minority Report stunt very doable.

SOURCE via Interface Ecology Lab