Professor Masatoshi Ishikawa and Dr. Takashi Komuro of the Tokyo University developed a new input method they’re calling “vision-based Input Interface”. Using a forward facing camera, something that many smartphones in Europe and Asia have, even though it’s debatable whether or not video calling took off, all five fingers are recognized and can be used for typing, clicking, browsing through photos, and eventually even more things once practical applications are developed. The forward facing camera used in this demo is a high speed, 154 frame per second, sensor. It’s one step closer to Minority Report type user interfaces, but it seems kind of counter intuitive to have this sort of user interface on a mobile device.

We look at people walking down the street and talking on their Bluetooth headsets as strange and possibly mentally deficient. Imagine seeing someone walking down the street waving to their mobile phone like he was some sort of character in Harry Potter. Not cool.

[Via: Gigazine, hat tip to @samin]