14 DAY TRIAL // You can only manipulate devices by touch if the devices themselves have support for finger tracking, but augmented reality company Metaio wants to change the whole world and make everything touch-supporting.
Basically, Metaio has created a technology that can turn anything, any surface, into an augmented reality interface.
Tapping a magazine to see web information, touching a product in a supermarket to see customer reviews, in theory, all of this should be possible.
The secret is a combination of infrared and visible light cameras that can see the heat signature of your fingers.
Combined with a new user interface that, presumably, could be applied to anything, it should be possible to enable a whole new way of interacting with everything made by man.
It will take a long time, a lot of effort and lots of money and an open mind to make the true vision happen though. Right now, the only prototype is embedded in a tablet and consists of an infrared camera coupled with a standard, visible light camera.
The device tracks the heat signature of your fingers and uses augmented reality software to add context-sensitive functions to your environment. Still, it can already tell if you're touching something or just hovering your finger above an item (the heat signature differs).
