Microsoft Surface Computing
May 30th, 2007
This is a bit off topic for this blog, but this is one of the coolest things I’ve seen that’s real.
Remember Minority Report with its holographic computer interface? The technology is called multi-touch, and it’s been around in labs for a while now. In fact, you’ll see it in the new iPhone later this summer. The concept is simple: you use multiple touch points to interact with a digital “object” in real time. You grab, pinch, turn, spin, and otherwise manipulate objects as you would in the real world. Very cool, very intuitive stuff.
Microsoft has a working coffee table-sized prototype of what they’re calling the Surface Computing Platform, and it’s packed with gee-wiz coolness. (Interestingly, there wasn’t a hint of a Windows interface. I’m sure they’ll mess the UI up at some point with a start menu of some kind (they just can’t help themselves), but for the moment, watching this thing in action is nothing short of sublime.)
Check the video out at the Popular Mechanics site. [link]
Microsoft has launched a website for its Surface Computing initiative. [link]
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