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This is some kind of multi user touch table. Application are very large, watch the videos on the link up here.
I love the bar table concept! This is brilliant!
The photo sharing sounds great too
Microsoft just announced a very cool new multi-touch computing product, called Surface
. At first the rumors were this would be an iPhone competitor, but it's clear now that it's much larger (30-inch display!) and more of an environmental computer device. Using the product, people can interact with information using touch, natural gestures and physical objects. So no mouse or keyboard is required. From the press release :
"Surface turns an ordinary tabletop into a vibrant, dynamic surface that provides effortless interaction with all forms of digital content through natural gestures, touch and physical objects. Beginning at the end of this year, consumers will be able to interact with Surface in hotels, retail establishments, restaurants and public entertainment venues."
It's best seen to be believed, so check out the videos on the Surface website . Here are some screenshots from those videos:
This is the kind of technology Microsoft does best - a hardware/software amalgam, but not requiring the branding and design touches that Apple is so good at. The beauty of Surface is that it will be integrated into the environment (i.e. tables), so it doesn't need to be a cool accessory for humans (like iPod, Macbook, etc). Microsoft isn't so good at accessorizing, but it definitely has the technology chops to create impressive hardware/software products like Surface and XBox.
it's on techcrunch now.
I saw the vids... I'm VERY excited... late 2007?
Sign me up, my only worry is the price. Decent tablet PC's are very expensive, like $2500-ish for something decent.
I can' wait to see these in action. The Surface idea will make some of thegreatest mashup more available to the average user. I think it is the change many users nee to get comfrotable with immediate information sharing. (my two cents...)
This is really cool. Does anyone know where i can find specs for the pc. r they any good? i wish this was cheaper
Scoble's got some grea info on his blog. Chec it out here: http://scobleizer.com/2007/05/30/more-on-microsofts-surface-computing-initiatives/
The photo one reminds me of a sendup in one of the T.E.D. talks. The guy talks about a revolutionary intuitive interface for viewing and moving photoes - an actual table.
In Marty's Tangle he has a video from Popular Mechanics where they have a demo as well as an interview with the chap in the TED talk shib71 talks about...
I've posted the video of Jeff Han at TED in the TED Group under Jeff Han: Multi Touch Sensing
Actually I was talking about the parody done in the closing talk. Tom Rielly does a send up of the conference, and demonstrates a new interface that uses actual photoes and a normal table.
It's ironic that so much development is done now in order to make technology as easy to use as no technology.
I haven't seen the paraody... I'll have to go have a look
Re: It's so ironic .... but that is the story of technology through the ages... the amount of technology in a simple pencil or even more so in a ball point pen are actually quite incredible when looked at compared to their predecessors.... all in the aim of making writing as 'simple' as talking....
If you doubt this take a look at what had to be invented to make the first pencils a workable technology
hmph!!
gimme a feather and ink any day!
still took a lot of technology in the paper and ink to make it work..... the feather was serendipity
Not to mention lots of skill in the writing department....
hmmmm just had a thought - how does technology change our skills? Would it be safe to assume penmanship is on the decline?
shib71: thanks for the pointer to Tom Reilly's talk. watching it now... ROFL.... liked his take off on Rosling's Data visulaization even better than the take off on Han....
This definitely reminds me of other pieces of technology that have "surfaced" in the past year or so.
We all saw right through that joke, Dieter
I've made some gestures towards my computer lately, but it didn't help. Surface sounds neat, but I bet some dummy out there is already developing a "Desurface" virus to do nasty things. Growl.
So did MS buy the technology from the people that developed the screen used in the TED talks? or have they just stolen the idea and called it their own? (I know its not like MS to steal technology...*cough*)
This is homegrown tech that's been in MS demos for years (well, honestly, hundreds of researchers at all sorts of companies and research labs are working on this sort of (multi-touch) stuff) ... but anyway, the MS "Surface" is not a touch or pressure sensitive table ... instead it uses cameras to sense things which are on (or near) the surface ... this gives it those unique capabilities you probably saw in the demo, like telling the difference between fingers and paint brushes, object-identification based on bar-code-like symbols, and being able to tell when a plastic block is upside down, etc.
Too bad it's priced in the $10k range (for now) ...
highly interesting concept...I hope to see more of this from many different companies and see where it goes. I can only think, though, that if these huge high-tech things had something like video camera capability, we would have the telescreen.
The concept goes back before the days of digital computers... and has been demonsrated in one form or another many times since the late 60's.
Corticalaxon: in fact as demonstrated by Microsoft it is more like interactive TV than computation.... Jef Han in his presentations has shown using the capabilities to control multilayer graphics and data visualization processes...
