Most of us use a traditional mouse to control the movements of the mouse cursor on our computers but take a look at the Skymouse in the image above; the lady is controlling he mouse cursor using her fingertips and hand gestures.

The device was designed by Eliott Ephrati and it tracks the movements of users’ fingertips using infrared LEDs in combination with an infrared camera according to a Gizmag article. The fingertip tracking is facilitated through the use of ‘Skymouse Pointers’ worn on the fingertips. Simply move around your fingers and the device will convert these movements into corresponding movements on your computer screen.

Skymouse will of course be compatible with the traditional right and left-click, but it is intended for new gestures to be created  for the device through an accompanying development kit which will correspond to the carrying out of various actions on your computer.

For those of you who think that the pointers which have to be worn on your fingertips are cumbersome, Ephrati has stated that he is working on releasing an updated version which can be operated without the pointers. The Skymouse is unfortunately currently not in production but Ephrati is running a Kickstarter campaign in order to facilitate this goal. If the kickstarter campaign is successful, the device could be launched and shipped by as early as April of 2014. Ephrati is requesting a minimum of $70 on Kickstarter but this will secure you a Skymouse along with four accompanying pointers — assuming that the campaign turns out to be successful.

This device is quite promising and could offer users a much wider range of functionality than is currently offered with the traditional mouse and potentially speed up everyday computing. It could also flop and annoying the heck out of lazy computer users who will tire after a few minutes of use. Let’s see what happens.

[via Gizmag]