Light Touch Pico is a pico projector that puts touch to any screen

Some of you may have seen interactive projector displays in malls and other indoor areas. While these systems do respond to events such as mock-kicking a projected soccer ball, they aren’t portable and accurate to use for more daily tasks like typing or point-of-sale.

Light Blue Optics aims to change that and has been working for six years to perfect the Light Touch Pico. Combining holographic laser projection (HLP) and infrared sensors, it projects a screen on any flat surface that responds to touch events. From a demo at CES, it’s amazing how responsive it is and how clear the picture is. It can even project movies.

The device is an entire system in itself and runs Windows CE and Adobe Flash Lite. It has built in wireless connectivity so it can connect to other systems and the Internet. The current model has 2GB storage for the software and media.

This could very well be the next step in the touchscreen revolution. While it still has the pitfalls of projections systems in that it needs a flat surface and low light to work well, in time this could develop as the new portable computing trend. Some applications are in places where large touchscreens won’t be very feasible like in a kitchen or car garage or a menus in restaurants.

The company won’t be selling the technology directly though and will be bringing in partners on board who will brand and create devices based on it. No word yet on expected prices or a timeline for release.

source Switched