I haven't found an actual semi-technical description of what functions this thing has but I can outline a few from the video. Its a MIDI controller designed to run on Linux and trigger any thing you have on your computer. The control interface is very similar to a guitar in shape and style. There are no strings. It seems like each fret position on the neck (across all 6 strings) has been replaced by a button, so it looks like the chord shapes are the same (given the same tuning scheme, not sure if this can be changed). The unique thing about this instrument is that notes are triggered using a touch screen interface. The touch screen has a visual feedback elements in the form of lights at points of touch. Looking at it there seems to be one circle of light which is always present and can be actually dragged around the screen with the finger. I assume the x-y position of this circle can be linked to any control parameter. To trigger notes the gesture seems to be tapping else where on the screen with fingers. Interestingly the screen supports multi-touch so the instrument can be played by drumming multiple fingers on the screen, some what like a series of drum pads. The x-y position of the tap is also used as a control input. Notes can be sustain by tapping and holding and during the hold the x-y position can be changed dynamically. I can' t be sure if the controller is pressure sensitive are if the screen can be split into different sections etc.
One idea for the excitation gesture for my controller is to use pressure pads to allow the user to tap the body of the instrument with their fingers to trigger sounds. The pad would (hopefully) also allow sustained notes and obviously the pressure of the finger would be used to control some aspect of the synthesis. Using a tapping gesture like this along with pressure should provide a nice haptic feedback system given an effective mapping strategy.
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