There is no need to wait for Windows 7, or drop $10,000 on a Microsoft Surface tabletop computer, or even acquire a new PC with touch-computing capabilities, in order to experience a more natural user interface. This is where Touchless 1.0 comes into play. Developed by Mike Wasserman, a self described Microsoft work force rookie, Touchless is an open source software development kit (SDK) designed to permit developers to build Touchless multi-touch applications leveraging nothing more than an inexpensive webcam.

Touchless is “a *FREE* *OPEN-SOURCE* SDK with a low barrier to entry for developers and users,” Wasserman revealed. “Touchless makes developing multi-touch capable software easy, and the results can be enjoyed by anyone with a webcam! Touchless has come a long way, but its journey has just begun. I can imagine a variety of great directions to explore using Touchless. Perhaps support for the forthcoming Windows multi-touch API, video chat white-boarding, implementing mouse/game/hotkey/media control, and designing decked out Minority Report style file/media browsers.”

Touchless has been released to Microsoft's open source projects repository CodePlex under the Microsoft Public License (Ms-PL) and is available as a free download. After joining Microsoft, Wasserman built on his initial concept involving a webcam-based multi-touch SDK, and the work developed into a Microsoft Office Labs Community Project. Office Labs is even offering a demo allowing users with a webcam to play around with an application built with the SDK.

“I rewrote my [original] project using XNA for Microsoft Office Labs’ Productivity Science Fair and demonstrated it for a lot of people, including Andy Wilson (the brilliant mind behind Microsoft Surface). Some laughed at the goofy little marker pellets on my fingers but they still saw value in the project. Office Labs Community Projects soon thereafter expressed interest in helping me release the project as an SDK,” Wasserman added.

Touchless SDK 1.0 is available for download here.