LightBeam: a new research project that offers projected interaction with real world objects

Researchers from Germany and the US are suggesting a new interaction system called LightBeam. The idea is to use a pico projector to track and interact with objects. The researchers suggest to use robust tracking to follow movements and rotations of objects (of any shape and surface), visualization that is adapted to the surface size of the object and interaction based on real objects (they show a mug that you rotate to switch between applications) - that last bit is really cool. Here's a video demonstration:

On the video's bottom left you can see the pico projector and the web cam. It seems to be an AAXA L1 laser projector.

source: Darmstadt's technical university