Sony's portable projector now can be controlled with in-air hand gestures

If you need to tell a digital device what to do but can't use a keyboard, voice is the first option that springs to mind. You can use it for phones, digital assistants and smart speakers.

But some devices are getting digital eyes in addition to digital ears. That's the vision, so to speak, of Israeli startup EyeSight Technologies. EyeSight has mostly dropped its previous efforts to build its gesture-recognition tech into phones, TVs and PCs. But it's got a new angle on the market: connected devices in homes and cars.

On Monday, Sony and EyeSight plan to announce that the Japanese electronics maker has built the vision technology into an interactive portable projector called the Xperia Touch. The device already can project an image onto a wall or other surface and then use infrared light sensors to see how you're interacting with the image on that surface -- slicing up fruit in Fruit Ninja or playing a virtual piano keyboard, for example.

EyeSight's upgrade will now let you control the content from a distance, without touching the projected image's surface. Think Tom Cruise in "Minority Report."

You may already be familiar with gesture tech in video game controller software like Microsoft's Kinect, but the technology has yet to widely reach other computing devices. The addition of gesture control in the Xperia Touch shows that the tech industry is still hard at work trying to find a better, more natural way for us to interact with our devices. Keyboards and mice show no signs of disappearing, but they can't work in every situation.

Cars, too
EyeSight is particularly fired up about its gesture-detection interface for use in our increasingly tech-laden cars. Hand positions and movement can be easier than a textureless touch screen a driver has to look at to use, EyeSight Chief Executive Gideon Shmuel said.

"With your finger, you can do a small circle motion to the right or left to turn volume up and down," he said. You could flash one finger to call home, two fingers to call your office or hold your palm flat to answer an incoming call.

Sony Xperia Projector beams a touchscreen on any surface