Mountain View startup Atheer wants to make it easier, and more natural, to interact with the digital world. A prototype of its interactive 3-D interface shows it is well on its way.

“The goal is to give people what we believe is a much better experience in connecting with the digital world,” CEO Soulaiman Itani told Wired. Atheer aims to do that in three ways: By not using a tiny display, by using natural gesture-based interfaces, and by employing 3-D.

It should be noted that Atheer’s technology, though worn like glasses in one prototype, is not a Google Glass doppelgänger. Glass is more akin to a heads up display that places information in the upper right corner of your field of vision. Atheer’s mobile 3-D platform projects a display in front of you, so it seems you’re looking at a large screen some distance away. Itani says the distance can be adjusted to suit different situations and preferences. You can watch a movie, read a book, or examine a map, navigating and controlling operations using simple hand gestures. The “stop” hand sign, for instance, is used to return to a main menu.