See-through touchscreen is a glimpse into the future

This, my friends, is the future of portable gadgets. Sure, touchscreens might be all the rage with the iPhone crowd, but it's not the best input method out there. I mean, when your fingers are over the screen, you can't see it. Duh.

That's not the case with the See-Through MultiTouch display, developed jointly by Mitsubishi, Microsoft and the University of Toronto. As you can see in the video above, in which they use a cobbled-together prototype to show off the concept, rather than sensing where your fingers are on the front of the screen, it senses where they are on the back. That way you can point at things on the screen without covering them up. The tech isn't quite there yet for this to be a reality on current devices, but look for it to be the next big thing in a couple of years. I can't wait.

NewScientist, via GadgetLab