It can be innovative, but it also can be nightmare, if your application must support all interfaces. I believe abstraction layer in OS or language ease a bit, but won't fix that.<p>Nevertheless, I'm positive to that trend, actually cannot wait to see what innovative idea (and games on these) will come in near two years (and if I can bring anything).
Shouldn't this article be more accurately titled as: Innovations in Human Interface Devices? It doesn't seem particularly relevant to UI design, other than that they affect UI design.