BMW kills the touchscreen via holographics

If you thought touchscreens were cool, you're going to love BMW's new holographic haptic doodad. Dubbed the HoloActive Touch, it eschews regular 2D touchscreens – they're so 2016 – for holographic 3D projections that produce tactile feedback.

The upshot? You can impress your friends. The drawback? Every time you sneeze the car honks the horn and flashes the headlights.

In all seriousness, the new technology is being considered by BMW as a new direction for infotainment control, allowing all passengers to interact with a car's satellite navigation, communication and entertainment systems.

Making its debut at Consumer Electronics Show, or CES 2017 in Las Vegas, the thinking is that as cars become more automated, vehicle occupants will have more time on their hands and will desire more advanced and efficient infotainment systems.

The BMW i Inside Future sculpture's drawcard is the HoloActive Touch system – although the bookshelf and tiny garden are a close second and third.

At the show, the static sculpture has been set up to allow showgoers to hop inside and have a go with the HoloActive Touch.

There's a lot of buzzwords and fanciful doodads being bandied about at CES that are best-described as marketing claptrap or simply existing tech renamed – including Hyundai's wall-mounted car (uh-huh) or BMW's ‘Connected Window’ (spare me – just call it screen!).

That said, the HoloActive Touch – an oxymoron if there ever was one – does look kind of cool.

Imagine waving your hands inside a 3D holographic representation of the city you're in, to pinpoint a hidden hipster bar down a dingy, graffiti-covered alleyway, with tactile feedback that lets you know there's no parking within cooee.

The BMW HoloActive Touch system contained within the striking i Inside Future sculpture also promises to offer more personalisation and is the "latest chapter in a story that began with BMW iDrive" according to the German company.

Buttons, dials and the like will be a thing of the past if BMW has its way, with gesture control to dominate.

The HoloActive Touch system comprises a "free-floating virtual display which is projected in the area above the centre console" says BMW, and is controlled by finger movements. The tactile feedback is generated by an ultrasonic source guided by cameras that monitor hand positions. It manifests as a subtle vibration in the user’s fingertips.

Another benefit of HoloActive Touch, according to BMW, is that passengers won't have to lean forward in their seats or stretch out of position to use it, presumably improving the effectiveness of safety systems (such as airbags).

BMW has invested big bucks at CES 2017 with a massive presence at the event, showing off its new self-driving, fully autonomous 5 Series large car along with the Connected Window, and Intelligent connectivity, the latter simply another word for the internet according to one expert.

If it's got a cloud, or can be shared, self-driven, is electric, connected, streamed, sensed or digitised, you'll find it at CES in Las Vegas.