Microsoft’s Surface - Multi-touch Technology
Microsoft announces the new Microsoft Surface System, a multi-touch screen table which introduces endless possibilities for the business and home environment. I actually first discussed this technology with Mike, a friend of mine which built one of these systems right from his home office before anyone even knew Microsoft was working on this. Since then he recently started a blog over at Blogger where he writes about the technology and has videos of the multi-touch screens he has made along with showing a glimpse at the building process.
Truthfully after discussing the technology I’m very interested in the possibilities it can provide us with but at the same time I’m also a little turned off by the bulky appearance of the whole system. The reason for its bulky appearance is mainly due to the fact that the system runs off a movie projector along with additional inferred beams which track and read the surface of the glass. I don’t know about you but I like my screens to be thin, ultra thin at best. So for the most part, this would be a system in which businesses would be interested in, not consumers, we would just like to play with it, not take it home and clutter up the place. Although I must say I’ve seen several demonstrations of what this technology can do and frankly it’s pretty impressive, but I would love to see it in a more compact design where I can easily hang on the wall.
Jul 4th 2007
I think it is important design wise to either build these as sleek as possible, or to design them to be inserted into existing surfaces in your house (such as walls, tabletops, etc)
With projectors and cameras, there will always be a need for some space; although there are already ways around this. Microsoft research is currently working on a “Multitouch Laptop” (http://youtube.com/watch?v=ulwA3n8AYM0) which would solve all the space issues. If you can run multitouch on a small laptop LCD, then you should be able to incorporate that tech into a larger, in-the-home type of screen. Once you remove the projector and use a standard LCD, you cut the throw distance down dramatically.
I personally think Multi-touch is very interesting, but I struggle to really comprehend its functionality for a home-user. I think they would make great surfaces for Museums, Casinos, or Entertainment venues (such as bars, nightclubs) … I even feel that a draftsman or architect could have great use with a multi-touch screen, as well as a field commander in the Army. Anyone who really needs to be able to manipulate large amounts of information quickly would really be able to benefit from multi-touch, although I just don’t see this becoming something for the average home-user for quite some time.