A project called nanoTouch, developed at Microsoft Research, tackles the challenges of adding touch sensitivity to ever-shrinking displays. A gadget would have a front that is entirely a display, a back that is entirely touch- sensitive, and a side that features buttons.

Perceptive Pixel describes software that recognizes how hard a user is pressing a surface. If they press hard on an image of, say, a playing card and slides it along the display to another card, it will slide underneath. Or press hard on one corner of an object on the screen, and the opposite corner pops up, enabling the user to slide things underneath it. This provides a way to prevent displays from getting too cluttered