NEC has come up with a new way of controlling gadgets that involves a little wristband that can tell when you poke your arm with your finger. Poke poke poke.

As gadgets get simultaneously smaller and more complicated, alternative control systems become more important. Ideally, you want the simplicity and ease of use of a whole bunch of specific buttons without having to devote all of the space on your device to a whole bunch of specific buttons.

NEC's solution is to take the buttons out of the device and just integrated them directly into your arm instead. Thankfully, the technology is non-invasive, and simply uses a wireless wristband equipped with an array of acceleration sensors. The sensors are able to tell not just when you tap yourself on the arm, but generally where you tap yourself, with enough sensitivity to detect seven different tap zones per arm.

NEC says that all this pokeage is "nearly free from input errors," and I imagine that it works effectively through clothing or a jacket. The technology sounds like it's just in the prototype stage at the moment, but it's easy to imagine buying a little bracelet accessory with built-in Bluetooth that senses your pokes and sends custom commands to your smartphone. Commands like, "search WebMD for arm bruise treatments."

NEC, via Akihabara News