At the D: All Things Digital conference Wednesday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will unveil Microsoft Surface, the first in a new category of surface computing products from Microsoft that will “break down traditional barriers between people and technology”.
A Surface computer is able to recognize physical objects from a paintbrush to a cell phone and allows hands-on, direct control of content such as photos, music and maps. Surface turns an ordinary tabletop into a dynamic surface that provides interaction with all forms of digital content through natural gestures, touch and physical objects.
The new product is aimed directly at hotels, retail establishments, restaurants and public entertainment venues and should be commercially available towards the end of the year.
It’s an interesting product in that it’s completely out of left field. Microsoft gives examples of ordering a beverage during a meal with just the tap of a finger and quickly browsing through music and dragging favorite songs onto a personal playlist by moving a finger across the screen. Build this into a bar and you’d get one-touch beer service although I’m not sure if they’ve found a way to work out when your beer glass is empty so replenishment becomes automatic, maybe in a later version.
The practical uses for Surface at the point of sale are broad. This is touch screen point of sale technology at a new level.
Initial launch partners include Harrah’s Entertainment, Starwood Hotels and T-Mobile. Coverage at CrunchGear here.
Update: Channel 10 has a great first look video here.
Sounds super exciting! I’m sure someone has done this in past as art project of some sort but for MS to be making a product out of it is significant.
Just don’t give me a blue screen when I’m ordering dessert.
-Zaid
yeah, gaming, porn and video games are the killer apps for this.
they gave a demo of this at CES in Jan of 2006 too. i dug up the webcast: http://www.micr...Keynote_MBR.asx
looks pretty cool if you ask me
ok, the photos app is very cool. I want one. We need it for “testing” purposes.
This is the future of computing – and illustrates the difference between Microsoft and Linux in terms of investments in innovation
Saw the Jeff Han video about a year ago on youtube…really cool technology. Mike you are right..this is a porn addicts dream come true…
btw..this is the original Jeff Han video from youtube
http://www.yout...h?v=QKh1Rv0PlOQ
Instead of auto-filling your empty beer glass, perhaps guests should have to solve a logic puzzle first. A Surface Sudoku, or something like that.
I’ve been wanting to make an interactive touch-sensitive coffee table for about a year now. Problem is time (I’m not paid to do this), and funds (I’m not Microsoft). It would be a learning experience though, not something with the target of being mass marketed.
Cheap shot at Linux, there Search Engine Web. I’m not sure how this “illustrates the difference between Microsoft and Linux in terms of investments in innovation” since “Linux” isn’t a single company that can “invest” in things, so it’s really an apples to oranges comparison. Where are all the Microsoft Partners doing this kind of “investment in innovation”?
Looks absolutely amazing. Same technology that will be implemented into a iPhone killer?
Awesomeness.
Wow, I think Microsoft this time is innovating, absolutely amazing!
This technology has a tremendous business potential. iPhone is *NOTHING* compared to this!
Looks very nice, definitely some promising ideas for businesses to be built upon this technology… I for one will be looking into it
Sony has a prototype.
Jeff Han has a prototype.
Apple certainly for hell has prototype.
Microsoft now shows off theirs.
This is now a question of who can get it to the average joe’s hands first. I give it 5 years.
WoW .. this should be the tagline for Surface Computers not Vista
@ Alaska, the video says that corporations should have surface computers by the end of the year.
So the average Joe should be playing around with this next year. 5 years is too far ahead, I place my bet on 3 ..
So did Microsoft steal this from Jeff Han or license it? As if I have to ask.
ok ok ok. i’m skeptical of those who are posting saying this is kicks an iphone’s ass. um, one is a cell phone. one is a coffee table that NO ONE is going to buy. it’s quicker if you just send me your photos. or link to them. flickr is even better. and sharing music? let’s be realistic. we’ll just download it. ourselves. interesting to see how MS envisions the future: not everyone has a zune so they must use this coffee table. wireless sharing no good?
Seems very cool though I bet Microsoft will somehow make this suck. There are so many ways they can make this good, easy to use and purposeful but I’m sure they’ll find ways to avoid them.
Finally, Microsoft whole-heartedly deserves theirs “Wow”. Very impressive innovation.
I wonder what happens when you spill a beer on it.
I can see something like this at uWink, Nolan Bushnell’s interactive restaurant. I’m very bullish on ubiquitous computing especially in social environments. Hopefully they will open up application development for this baby.
Righhhhhhht… surface computing products from Microsoft that will “break down traditional barriers between people and technology”.
This, from the one company more responsible than any other for erecting barriers between people and technology?
Remember the recent Apple ad? “You have come to a sad realisation. Cancel or allow?”
Very innovative. For once..a innovative idea from a giant. this shows that the company has still not lost its agility..
Apple lawsuit in 3…2…1
I wish this was announced on April 1st.
But, I remember reading it one of the books that Bill gates’ house walls were sort of computer screen and this surface computer seems like productizing the same giving it a commercial angle.
Very very cool… I wonder who has the patent on “multi-touch” is it Apple (for the iPhone) or Microsoft?
@Jan2x. This technology has been developing since 2001. Around the time when Apple released their first gen crappy ipods. I am sure MSFT has its load of patents. If they have the patent for object recognition, game over for apple
I guess Microsoft is greater than Google.
Microsoft = Satan
Google = God
Yahoo = Doggie Sex.
Strange religion.
this announcement just sucked the wind out of iFanboys everywhere. imagine if apple had announced this and called it iSurface. Fanboys would be posting it on every blog as the second coming of christ.
redmond has some fight left, cupertino boys.
This is NOT new or innovative. Here in Switzerland we’ve been able to buy train tickets by tapping selections on a touchscreen for years.
The earliest use of touchscreens to interact with a computer was not later than the 1970s. At the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, touchscreens were used in a control system in 1979. There were probably earlier uses.
There are too many comments here from Microsoft astroturfers trying to present Microsoft as “innovative”.
Glad to see it coming out of the lab. I’ve seen stuff like this since the 80s, but at very high price points. Bill Buxton made it much more affordable in the mid-90s. The folks at Brown University developed a lot of the UI principles in the late 90s. For some reason, Jeff Han’s slick demo popularized it. Now, MS thinks they’ve found a market where they can commercialize it. If OLEDs and a few other key techs drop in price, this sort of thing may become ubiquitous in 10 years.
i want one i want one i want one i want one
The truth about the fancy table.
We saw this same stuff on ZDTV 5 years ago, and probably on CNET back when that network was on TV too. And they said it would do the exact same things back then – except, IIRC, the focus was on touch-table food menus. The technology to do this has been around for a long time now. It’s not who does it first – it’s who does it [well] when the market is ready for it.
http://www.fata...rosoft-surface/
I so want one of these things. They look awesome!
The point is not that it’s a touch screen, but that it’s multitouch and you can do multiple interdevice things with it. But the demo movie is damn cool (I’m a lifelong Apple owner and don’t work for Microsoft)
I wonder how they’ll power it? Anyone here have airport-style power-sockets-in-floor in their living rooms? I for one look forward to coming home to the heat and whirring fans of my Microsoft coffee table.
seen this sort of technology floating around Cebit for a year or two now, but nothing as organised or fancy as this!
the wow starts now!
I’m no MS fan, I hated the Zune and the XBox 360 could be lots better, but this is pretty effin cool.
A: Microsoft is going to sell it to big companies first – great commercial applications for this kind of device, and its going to be relatively cheap (like $5,000-$10,000) each. Thats about as much as a pool table or slot machine. Its probably a better investment than a Segway! Plus, I’m sure microsoft is throwing the software development and maintence in with the deal to fuel early adoption
B: Eventually this device will become a platform (pardon the pun) for software development. The hardware (Table PC could be a name for it) would be manufactured by third-parties (like Dell, HP, etc.), the software operating system by Microsoft (Vista Table) and then eventually third-parties would create additional software (for example, a method to substitute zune in the ad with IPod all you apple fanboys).
Looking at the world of Star Trek and other Futurist’s visions, I don’t find it a far reach that in 2-3 years early adopters will have some version of this in their homes, and in 10-15 years something like this could replace the PC. I am not saying that everyone will have a fuss-ball table like PC in their homes, but some other device that features similar technology such as multi-touch and tagged recognition coupled with Wi-Fi Input/output.
impresionnant je dois dire, le futur s’annonce plutôt intéressant à vrai dire… on est pas loin de MInority report…
Apologies for the double trackback. Forgot to remove the trackback URL when making changes
As for the patent thing, I think it’d be fairly safe to assume that if Microsoft wasn’t the sole patent holder, that they would have licensed what was required. Especially considering their recent announcements in the Patent arena.
BTW – Gates owns Starwood, one of the hotels using the service first. Was it really that hard to find channel partners that he had to sell to his own company?
http://retail.s...m/article/19954
this is a great step from ubiq window devices that I’ve been using and the multi touch seems awesome
We had table-top computing years ago – it was called pong then.
Am I the only person who’s completely underwhelmed by this? It’s a flat touch screen lying down rather than on a wall. Big whoop. Sure they’ll sell some to some fancy hotels and companies with more money than sense but I fail to see this as any kind of breakthru
personally i think its pretty cool. I can think of all sorts of advertising uses
Awesome. MS is really innovative. Once again, i’ve got only one word “AWESOME”
It’s pretty cool, but Microsoft didn’t develop it, they bought it. Let’s see what they come up with for it.
Doesn’t the iPhone have the same thing?
Nick, Simon – You are correct that touchscreen apps have been around for decades. I remember supporting Big Blue’s touchscreen monitors for a major pharma sales training operation in the late ’80’s combined with (Adobe) Macromedia Authorware. The technology works very well already. And, yes, they are very effective interfaces for people who are not comfortable with traditional computing.
The biggest innovation, however, is the multitouch UI which allows manipulation of objects and quicker navigation. Most existing commercial touchscreens are single touch.
A tip of the ice berg….few months ago i saw similar thing on youtube demonstrated by a Researcher…..
http://www.yout...h?v=PLhMVNdplJc check out the link…