
Personally speaking, we may be getting a bit too accustomed to touch-screen functionality. We wile away so many hours every day rapidly poking, stroking and prodding smartphone and tablets like blind proctologists, we occasionally end up effectively imitating confused chimpanzees when we jab and swipe ordinary laptop displays to no response at all.
Yeah, this is why we’re no longer allowed in the Apple Store. Well, one reason.
The soon-to-release Neonode AirBar may be a revolutionary evolutionary link between highly interactive touch screens and an ordinary notebook or desktop display by tracking gestures and motion through an emitted invisible light spectrum.
When attached magnetically to any display’s bottom section and plugged into a USB port, movement through the spectrum translates into inputs that navigate the display and OS just like a touch screen without a single physical hardware alteration. This plug-and-play device works smoothly with Windows, ChromeOS and limited OSX functionality and no additional drivers whether any user is bare-handed, wearing gloves, or holding any additional object.
One of the only potential major drawbacks so far is that the Neonode AirBar will only initially accommodate 15.6″ screens. The AirBar will retail everywhere for $49 when it releases in January 2016.