Microsoft Wants You to Control Your Phone by Touching Yourself

Kinect's "using your body as a controller" feature was one of technology’s big hits last year -- not only have users had fun dancing up a storm and racing cars with official Kinect games, but a whole community has emerged to dream up new and inventive ways of hacking the system that tracks 20 joints in your body.

But if you think that's Microsoft's last foray into unconventional means of controlling digital devices, think again. The Seattle giant has a whole team of smarty-pants researchers tasked with imagining new and freaky ways we might one day turn on our mp3 players, dial phones, and, who knows, maybe even power up a microwave for a little burrito action. One of the projects they’re working on is "Skinput," a system that would allow you to control devices simply by hitting specific points on your arm. Not a device on your arm. Just your arm itself.