“Microsoft is announcing today a new direct-manipulation concept and user interface targeted at the gaming and hospitality industries. The system uses projectors and cameras beneath a translucent flat surface to give user the appearance of seamlessly manipulating both real and virtual objects in the same environment,” Carl Howe writes for Blackfriars’ Marketing.
Howe writes, “Make no mistake: multi-touch and direct manipulation interfaces like Milan (Microsoft’s development code name for surface computing) are very cool. In fact, that’s one of the reasons the consumer market is so excited about Apple’s iPhone: it will be the first multi-touch direct manipulation device available to consumers. But as with many concept demos, the devil here is in the details, and Microsoft’s surface computing initiative is very different from — and probably will never compete with — the technologies Apple is introducing in the iPhone.”
Microsoft’s technology:
• Depends on cameras and projectors for its magic
• Focuses on large interactions instead of small
• Doesn’t fit in the PC ecosystem
Howe asks, “So surface computing isn’t the iPhone or a PC technology. Does that matter? After all, Apple isn’t doing anything with multi-touch for computers, is it?”
“Well wait a few weeks and you may be surprised at how much Apple is doing with multi-touch,” Howe writes.
Full article here.
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