http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/touchless/default.aspx
Theme: Interacting without touching

Understanding the properties, challenges and social consequences of touchless body-based interactions

Through our bodily relationship and actions with objects, places, and each other, we are able to express and create a rich variety of meaning and human value. Gestures, movement trajectories, spatial positioning, and proximity are all means through which we communicate, interpret, and control our world. With the emergence of evermore sophisticated sensing techniques we are able to interact in new ways with the digital world without touch. Proximity, orientation, gesture full body movement, and even the use of brain waves are all means by which we can interface with the digital world without touch. These new mechanisms open up opportunities for exploring new genres of experiences and applications in a variety of new contexts where touch-based interactions alone may neither be possible, desirable, or as engaging. The important concerns for this theme are to understand the properties, challenges, and social consequences of touchless body-based interactions and how to design experiences with these mechanisms that achieve value and meaning for people in everyday contexts.