Microsoft Surface

[Ravendust]

Wow, this seems pretty huge. A revolution in interactive displays.

The Microsoft Surface is a large (~30") multi-touch/gesture-screen with a 1ghz Vista pc built in and infrared sensors/bluetooth/wifi/wireless usb that can see and feel different objects and interact with them in many different ways. For instance, you no longer have to have a dock for an mp3 player, just put it on the table-like screen and interact with it, add songs or whatever. Putting a digital camera on the surface lets you view/edit the photos on it. There's plans to put it in shops, resturants and casinos, and when the price drops, homes to replace tables.

Over the years we've seen plenty of surface and gestural interface computing systems and prototypes, but nothing mass-market -- nothing consumable, if you will. Microsoft aims to change all that with Surface, its first foray into surface / gestural interfaces; arriving in the form of a 30-inch table-like display, Microsoft envisions its eventual uses as pervasive as imaginable, like ordering beverages from your restaurant table and silently scanning your wine bottle's RFID tag to automagically present information on the vineyard and vintage. Sure, some of it's pretty pie in the sky, but Microsoft is touting Surface's multi-touch, multi-user interface, object recognition and gestural interaction, and it's out to dispel myths of vaporware with limited 2007 rollouts in T-Mobile stores, Starwood hotels, and even Harrah's in Vegas.

As for the consumer end of things, it's estimated that we're still a number of years out on the technology (for starters these Surface units are estimated to cost up to ten thousand bucks). Pretty steep for what ultimately amounts to being an underbelly projector with digital cameras that track surface interaction (all of which running on a stock 1GHz Vista box), but the focus of any nascent technology is never price, it's function.

Source: Gizmodo

The videos illustrate the many uses for it;

Gizmodo Video (4:17 streaming)
On10 Video (18:15 streaming/download)

Watch and be amazed. The video puzzle and water interaction at the end of the longer video is simply stunning imo. I want my house wallpapered in this provided the screen is smudge/scratch proof =P

 

[Chakra-X]

Yeah my dad was telling me about that. Said it was like $10,000.

 

[Jariroth]

Thats pretty cool, makes me unable to resist sending this:

But honestly, looks like very easy to use interface and looks like extremely fast way to transfer files between wireless devices...

 

[frsrblch]

I don't see how these are any more practical than simply using a mouse. It's just a blatant waste of money, if you ask me. Wireless interfacing is fine, but it's really nothing new, so nothing to get excited about there either.

 

[Chakra-X]

Yeah but it's a table. Trying that with a monitor would probably have serious problems.

 

[Ravendust]

Plus you could paint with your penis, i'd like to see you do that with a regular PC. You wouldn't even have to buy paint.

 

[Pemalite]

Yeah but it's a table. Trying that with a monitor would probably have serious problems.

Actually, it wouldn't the Touch screen technology has been around for years, all Microsoft did was make an over-sized touch screen, made some software and strapped it with a shiny name.

Think if it like this, You ever seen those touchscreen booths in some places? where you look for jobs etc? (Like we have here in Centerlink in Australia).
They are just powered by a computer, which is hidden from sight.
(The ones at Centerlink are powered by a Pentium 4 2.4ghz processors).
The hard part would be the software, but I imagine it would have been built on Vista's technology.

 

[Ravendust]

The level of interactivity with other objects other than hands far surpasses anything that exists today. Phones, mp3 players, cameras, glass, coffee cups, wine bottles. If it can hold a tiny RFID chip it can interact with it.