“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.
wait a few weeks? o don’t make me more excited for wwdc!! i’m wetting my pants here!!
Apple is doing a lot more with it!
multi-touch imacs???
Is it just me or does this “new” Microsoft technology seem like something out of the 1980s? It has to have FIVE projectors to work?!
I don’t know, ladies and gents. Not many people really need a cell phone, but everybody is just a’salivatin’ for a tabletop PC in the living room! This Microsloth thing is gonna be HUGE!
[Wink, Wink]
This shit is disgusting. Everybody on these blogs ejaculating over a concept car.
These are the same people complaining that they couldn’t go without a physical keyboard when Steve Jobs said it was dead in January.
Where’s the FUD about fingerprints and how it’s worthless if you break the screen?
When I was in California about a year ago I walked into a music store in the mall (maybe Specs?) and they had on the floor a silver screen (kinda like a movie screen) that we could step on.
There was a projection on that screen of some balls. The projector was in the ceiling of the store. If you kicked on of the balls, it would bounce like crazy against the “walls” of the screen as well as the other balls.
The gadget was very cool.
Anyone know the name of the company that makes it?
Anyway, what Microsoft is touting here sounds like a more advanced (or maybe its are ripoff) of this same thing.
My MBP uses multi-touch on the trackpad and I love it.
Yeah M$’s stuff that the main stream media was all a gush today uses projectors and cameras beneath a translucent flat surface and what not, but it still uses Windows!
Their stuff is never any good anyway. Bill Gates is the Devil! Zune sucks, Windows is crap!!
I multi-touch myself all the time. If I had to rely on Microsoft, I’d blue screen right before orgasm.
Running those graphics, cameras, projectors etc must be taking about 10 Wintels and 10’s of gigabytes of memory to prop up Vista.
I doubt even then it’s reliable. I wouldn’t connect my iPhone to it that’s for sure!
[smartass alert]
It reminds me of those touch-sensor control panels in Star Trek: TNG. No wonder they had to separate the ship and abandon the thing so often.
I guess the BSOD wasn’t so easily seen on the screen, since blue screens become transparent on the film.
That’s enough MultiGirl…
It’s already in leopard. This is obvious.
Lights and Cameras? corny.
Whatever. Microsoft can barely get Vista to work. And that’s JUST the software.
Now we are talking living room furniture. I don’t see Microsoft pulling this off anytime soon. Software, cameras, furniture, mirrors. Oh and LOTS of smoke.
So, maybe Microsloth knows what is coming and in Leopard and is putting out this vapor product to steal the news and hope the dummies react to real Apple products with, “Oh Microsloth has a whole table like that at casinos. Well, they will be coming out with it.”
Keep them confused and offer a “standard” application. Back in the dark ages they used to say, “Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM products.” Same idea here. Cover anything new and innovative with promises. Play up how confusing and dangerous it all is. Sell them expensive mediocrity.
I guess this means the world will some day experience the Blue Surface Of Death. Such riches, the future holds.
Infomercials:
What you describe sounds like something a company called Reactrix provided. Not sure if its the same, but here’s a link for you.
http://reactrix.com/
Microsoft marketing folks come up with the most creative names–Microsoft Surface?!?
My kid steps on the moving balls, etc. at the Mall and has for several years now. The projector is on the ceiling, though. Could M$ get us any more excited with their scenerio of a wine selection list with the picture of the orchard it came from?? That is a real revolutionary genius idea, Ballmer.
Take a 30″ Apple Cinema Display with multi-touch and lay it flat on a table – surface computing!
It’s like those projectors at the mall. It projects onto the floor, say, a picture of balls and when you step on one it jets around the perimeter of the projected image and reacts like you kicked a real ball, LAME.
MS over hypes it’s products, Apple shows you what it’s products can do and the product itself excites people. It turn the media can’t stop talking about such products. 3 months of free publicity, wait until people get their hands on it, it’ll be a feeding frenzy.
@MulitiGirl
LMAO! 😀
If you read the product offerings or view the demonstrations you may notice that some of the ‘cooler’ features like ‘painting’ on the surface, ‘drink’ identification at the bar, and probably the cell phones and cameras have an additional hardware requirement. Those devices have to be outfitted with RFID chips and possibly other electronics in order to work with the ‘surface’ device.
While it would be interesting to see information about the drink I just ordered, it will put an extra burden the staff at the hotels and restaurants for them to tag each of the meals and/or drinks. There are also additional hardware requirements to tag these items as well as a requirement for the hotel/restaurant to imbed RFID chips in their plates and glasses.
Anyone who tells you that this system will cost 5 to 10K is not giving you the full story. There will be other devices required to support the ‘surface’ technology as well as a good deal of additional effort on the part of the wait staff to implement it properly. I can just hear the complaints now… I ordered the Won Ton Soup but the table is telling me that I am eating cheese cake!
I wonder if the table will also read the RFID chips on your credit cards and just automatically start draining your accounts?
Isn’t this a version of some research work we saw posted last year on YouTube?