MS just released Microsoft Surface which is that hand gesture type interface that we saw a while back.

Microsoft Surface, the first commercially available surface computer from Microsoft Corporation, turns an ordinary tabletop into a vibrant, interactive surface. It provides effortless interaction with digital content through natural gestures, touch and physical objects. Surface is a 30-inch display in a table-like form factor that’s easy for individuals or small groups to interact with in a way that feels familiar, just like in the real world. In essence, it’s a surface that comes to life for exploring, learning, sharing, creating, buying and much more. Soon to be available in restaurants, hotels, retail and public entertainment venues, this experience will transform the way people shop, dine, entertain and live.

Quite a cool piece of kit, can't wait to give it a bash. promoted forum item

thats cool as, i can't wait for that

omg thats leet. :O I've seen it before but didn't expect it to become commercial anytime soon. Be good for 3D modelling, photoshop and animation..

Microsoft v Google

imagine Microsoft AND Google v * nothing would stand a chance

That's pretty cool.

Though like with any Microsoft product, I'll wait for the first service pack.

microsoft know about that so release first sp very quickly... it really needs to be "i'll wait for r2"

how much is it?

how much is it?

From: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/317737_msftdevice30.html

Price will be a major obstacle for the new machine to overcome if it is to catch on with mainstream consumers. Thompson declined to disclose terms of the enterprise agreements under which Microsoft is selling the machines, which include related software and services.

However, he said, "If we made this a product sale, think of it in the range of $5,000 to $10,000 per unit."

It could be three or more years before it hits the broader consumer market, he said.

Also cool vids in that link.

thats bloody awsome. would probably get dirty really quick though. thats why i never touch public touchscreen computers.

imagine this in the hands of l33t cs kiddies. just grab the awp, double zoom and touch the enemies head.

I'd like to know how durable it would be, I really doubt you'd want to let your kids with their sticky jam hands paint the family portrait on your $20k coffee table

Looks cool but I have my doubt about its usability beyond a "novelty" usage.

I cannot imaging moving 100+ files/pictures one at the time or even "stacking" them manually then drag it to the new location. Besides, I thought the idea of having them on you PC is so it can be sorted neatly not the normal messy way storage system that is your desk i.e. the usual FILO process of stracking s*** of top of each other and to find something you'd need to lift them off one at the time.

With mouse and kb I could move lots and lots of files in the same dir with about 3 key strokes (ctrl+A, ctrl+X, ctrl+V)..

Also imagine sitting at your desk, holding your hands up all days moving it around, f*** that for a joke.

I guess that's why I'm a nerd.....

^ That's like a professional photographer bitching about how useless point-and-shoot cameras are.

It's not designed nor marketed for you.

Regardless I also wouldn't find it too useful except for maybe light image editing or as a multimedia-box frontend ... putting my credit card on it and trusting microsoft with it given their attitude towards security? Give me a break.

Oh and also as a music composing frontend as done by these other dudes on their own custom music device:

(Note: The video below is not of Microsoft Surface)





last edited by parabol at 10:55:23 31/May/07

^ That's like a professional photographer bitching about how useless point-and-shoot cameras are.

It's not designed nor marketed for you.

Yeah I guess that's what I'm saying really. For power users it'd be pretty useless but good for wow/novelty factor of course.

Very cool but would get absolutely filthy.

hahah that s*** is wyld stallions!
I love the sequencing! Heaps of fun..

my god. that's sexy.

http://goldndebris.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/surfacebod.jpg

The unit is pretty damm huge though. Would kinda suck having to bend over to reach everything(no leg space etc). But i'm guessing by the time the price comes down to a more consumer level it will be much smaller.

Otherwise, that thing is pretty darn impressive.



You guys recon this will have a large prevalence in homes in five years? Whilst i love the style of it, i just cant see too many people sitting hunched over this for any extended period of time. (There following comments are based on the three videos from the official site) The photo display stuff looks really cool, but seriously who's gonna use that for any extended period of time? The music aspect, displaying all the albums covers visually isnt really a new concept and will be incorporated in every home multimedia system within a few years. Plus a remote would be enough to control that adequately. Sharing stuff visually looks cool, but again can be done much more quickly and easily through a PC.

Based on all that I do think that this will eventually be popular in certain upmarket cafe's, restaurants and bars. I just dont see it being that prevalent in homes. I think integrated home media systems (something like Apple TV or at worst better intergration with PC) will become much more popular with the increase of bandwidth and prevalence of LCD/Plasma displays.

The huge obstacle this type of technology has to overcome is at the interface design level. There are two options: either you use it for limited functionality (i.e. menu ordering, photo stacking etc) or you use it for all functionality.

The latter option introduces the fundamental difficulty you have in any type of GUI design, intuitiveness is subjective and fundamentally difficult to obtain. I really don't see Microsoft pulling this off as a Consumer product (and I don't think they'll try) this will be sold to OEMs as a development platform to create home media centres and to shopping centres and whatnot as platforms for information terminals or data kiosks. I just don't see you fitting PC functionality into a device like this in a sane manner.

I can't see a big uptake in Consumerism for this one but I can see it's advantages from a commercial perspective. Working for a company that develops GIS/Spatial Mapping type software, I could see how we would use it as a selling tool with our products. Moving maps around, overlaying various terrain levels, etc.. would be awesome.

The other business unit develops software to create power plants, oil refineries, ships, etc so having the final design of something like a power plant in a 'surface'-type machine would give the ability to drag various components around, zoom in/out, etc.

This can all be done with a mouse of course, but having the wank factor of doing it by touch would be a tremendous selling tool.