Want a touch-enabled phone without the jumbo touchscreen? Microsoft might have the answer: A fascinating—if still experimental—technology that lets you touch, tap and drag on surfaces next to your phone, rather than on the screen itself.

Gearlog has the scoop on SideSight, which is on display this week at the User Interface Software and Technology in Monterey, Calif. (Check out this piece from CNET about other touch tech that's being demonstrated at the show.) The new technology is still only in the demo stage; there's no word on when (or if) it'll make its way into a shipping phone.

The concept is relatively simple (well, simple to explain, at least): A series of tiny IR sensors are spaced evenly along the outer edges of a phone, wristwatch, or any compact gadget. The sensors then detect fingertips on nearby surfaces (such as a tabletop) or even in the air, and translate those finger movements into action—or, more specifically, interaction with the device in question.

That means if you have a compact device with a tiny screen, you could still use touch—except instead of, say, panning around a Web page or flipping through a photo album by tapping and swiping the screen itself (which might prove impractical with a cramped display), you'd tap and swipe the surface that's right next to the screen. In the case of a wristwatch, you could even perform gestures in the air. Nice.

As Gearlog explains (in much more detail; click through to the story for more), researchers still have several hurdles to clear before SideSight comes to a phone near you. For example, it sounds like power consumption is still a problem, and there's also the small matter of telling the "action" fingertip/s apart from the other, "stray" fingers on your hand.

Still, it's a promising concept—one that could essentially turn any surface into a touch UI. I'll be keeping an eye on this one.

[Image credit: Microsoft, via CNET]

Related:
Microsoft's SideSight: Something Apple Should Watch [Gearlog]