Canesta, Inc. has launched a fully-Integrated projection keyboard for mobile and wireless devices. The company said by integrating a set of tiny Canesta components into such mobile products as smartphones, PDAs, tablet PCs, or cell phones, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) will be able to offer their customers the convenience of a full-sized keyboard and mouse created "out of thin air" by projected beams of light.

According to the company, this eliminates the need for awkward input methodologies such as styluses or thumb keypads. Canesta's "electronic perception technology" is then used to track user's finger movements in three dimensions as the user types on the image of a keyboard, projected on any flat surface in front of the mobile device. No accessories are required.

The Integrated Canesta Keyboard is made possible by the Canesta Keyboard Perception Chipset, the first commercial realization of Canesta's electronic perception technology. The company claims electronic perception technology is a low cost and practical technology that permits machines and electronic devices of any nature to "see" by tracking nearby objects in three dimensions in real time. The chipset itself, which consists of an invisible light source, a pattern projector for the keyboard, and a sensor chip, is designed to unobtrusively be Integrated right into the cases of small mobile devices.