One of the main gauges as to how advanced a technology is, has to be its user input/output. Look at the original Star Trek – those buttons now seem as outdated as small pox, and that screen Spock looks into? I not only have one at home, but mine is HD. The step-up to the next generation’s glitzy touch-screens is definitely noticeable, giving a clean sophisticated feel to a spaceship that in the 80s at least, felt as advanced as James Bond’s invisible car.

Cut to real life and the most recent input to break into to the mainstream is probably the touch screen. Although widespread now, simply comparing even the older resistive touch models to the rubber push buttons of those from the 90’s shows a great leap in innovation (and arguably, practicality). Show any denim sporting, 90s man with curtains a touch screen phone, and he’d assume it was a prop from the X-files (God I had to think hard for that one!). What’s next? Of course, as much as I’d like to pretend I am the font of all knowledge, I am unfortunately not, and have no idea as to what we will be using as inputs for our gadgets 5 or 10 years down the technological line; however, I thought I’d share with you the concept of skinput.

I won’t delve into any details since the video explains far more than I can ever hope to, but I thought the technology very intriguing and can honestly see it as a success of the future. Of course the chunky armband is far from ideal, but the company say it would be possible to shrink the hardware into something the size of a wrist watch. The screen of an mp3 player or phone may well become redundant, and although some might say it would be difficult to project an image onto a clothed forearm, why not simply have the image projected onto the palm of your hand? I for one find the thought of changing a track simply by opening my hand and hitting “skip” mouth watering. Check out the video and see what you think.

Of course, as ever, if you think I am talking from anywhere other than my mouth, feel free to leave us a healthy dose of (constructive!) comments below.