Like a balloon, smartphone and tablet screens are up and down when it comes to their size. One day, they’re the smallest possible, and the next, it’s back to bigger is better. But that may not be the case if XTouch has anything to do with changing the need for a screen at all.

The software was produced by a handful of students at the University of Toronto’s Mobile Applications Lab and is able to extend mobile interaction to any physical surface. So, for example, say you’re cooking and you’d like to avoid getting your greasy, grubby fingers on the iPad when swiping through the page contents of a recipe. Using XTouch, you can program four “virtual” navigation buttons on the kitchen table and then simply tap to scroll up and down the page on the device. There are numerous other applications for the technology, such as when playing a four-person game or turning off an alarm, which the video below describes.

[iframe_vimeo video = “86450573”]

From Stimulant. H/T BetaKit.