<News> - Holy cow, check out Microsoft Surface!

[saint]

I want one. Holy cow this looks cool! Check out the videos ...

[patrickl]

That looks very similar to the Multitouch that Jef han was presenting.

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=49804.0

[saint]

Yeah - buddy at work reminded me of that this morning. We were wondering if Microsoft bought or stole the technology, or if they developed it independantly.

[boykster]

Well, I KNOW they've been working this project over at Redmond for at least 3 years...ie they've had the technology "in-house" for it.  My guess is that a 3rd party company has developed the hardware interface, and MS has either copied it or licences it and then buried any reference to the 3rd party. 

the KNOW part is because they showed a tech demo of this system over 2 years ago at a MS tech days that I attended over at their research center.  It was neat then, its neat now.

[shardian]

 Very cool looking, but also very gimmicky.

[squirrellydw]

very expensive $5000 to $10000.  Apple iPhone has very similar technology and it's $500.  Some very cool things coming out for sure.

[Zero_Hour]

I've seen the multitouch demos previously, but this is the first example I've encountered that could identify devices like cameras, audio payers, and cellphones, and communicate directly with them. I think that is ultimately where the usability factor of the device could shine. At 10 grand, it certainly won't be in my living room anytime soon, but at half that price, I'd probably start considering one.

[polaris]

ive seen that screen thing being used for the top of a bar, when you put your glass on it ,mad patterns and effects would appear round it. really eye catching. i thought it was really impressive but having said that i used to have a vic 20 and everything blows me away after that.

[Havok]

Looks like we're getting closer to the Star Trek consoles...

[shardian]

Looks like we're getting closer to the Star Trek consoles...

Yeah, and I bet users will be seeing plenty of this too:

[Zero_Hour]

Yeah, and I bet users will be seeing plenty of this too:

Now that was funny.

I know I'm cursing myself saying it, but I haven't seen a BSOD since I went to Vista RC2 (now running Ultimate), last fall. (where's the fingers crossed emoticon when you need one?)

[jediz]

As usual Microsoft is way behind - This was first in use at Encom by Ed Dilinger. I guess after Flynn took over Encom the technology was buried.

[Howard_Casto]

As usual Microsoft is way behind - This was first in use at Encom by Ed Dilinger. I guess after Flynn took over Encom the technology was buried.

Well they really aren't behind, it's just nobody has the marketing power they do so until m$ adopts a tech, it doesn't get released.  the only exception being the ipod. 


The cost seems like an issue to me.... maybe it's the display itself that makes it so expensive, but the tracking system could be done for a little bit of nothing. 

[Fozzy The Bear]

The cost seems like an issue to me.... maybe it's the display itself that makes it so expensive, but the tracking system could be done for a little bit of nothing. 

Yeah and just like all other touch screen technology it'll break down! .....  Touch screen arcade fruit machines are the right royal pain in the rear!! Trust me I'm the poor B'stard that has to fix the damned things when they pack up.

Maybe Microstuffed invented a surface that repells greasy finger marks as well as can't be scratched, while they were designing it  It's pretty, but like so much technology and even like games, just because it looks good doesn't make it playable or useable.

Tell me this.... How many of you have a coffee table that doesn't have the newspaper, a couple of books, the tv guide and the tv and dvd remotes on it.... as well as mabee a fruit bowl and a half eaten bar of chocolate.  Not to mention the coasters for the coffee mugs..... Who wants a whomping great monitor there insead of all the useful stuff we use the coffee table for.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

[RandyT]

Tell me this.... How many of you have a coffee table that doesn't have the newspaper, a couple of books, the tv guide and the tv and dvd remotes on it.... as well as mabee a fruit bowl and a half eaten bar of chocolate.  Not to mention the coasters for the coffee mugs..... Who wants a whomping great monitor there insead of all the useful stuff we use the coffee table for.

I was thinking the same thing.  Great, now I can have a pile of virtual crap on the screen underneath the real pile of crap.

Maybe it will sense all the junk, try to communicate with it and when it finds that it can't, nag you until you clean it off...


RandyT

[patrickl]

Normally it would do fine as a cocktail table, but if you want to use it as a computer you'd need to move the junk aside. Doesn't sound like too  much of an issue. In a hotel lobby or hotel bar it would do perfectly. Probably more than a cocktail arcade game did.

The demo with the phones looked a bit silly to me. What kind of store does let you run around with the phones without supervision? Would it also really be able to tell which phone is on top? Some phones basically only differ in color, but can differ in cost by large amounts.

I was wondering about the surface too. The top has to be a sort of flexible surface? So something like plexiglass? That would indeed scrath easily.

[Howard_Casto]

Well if they have half a brain, the desk is communicating with the objects via either bluetooth (it detects something sitting on it, sends out a bluetooth query and the phone identifies itself) or either rfid tags. I seriously doubt it's using just a camera or just touch sensors to identify objects. 

As for the comment to my touch screen comment... I suppose you've been in a cave for a few years.    This is multi-point touch screen technology here, not the pathetic, mono point electro-static tech used in arcade monitors.  Basically it works by making a ir led grid along the edge of the glass and monitoring it via a digital camera.  The glass is specially treated so that the ir light bounces between the layers of the glass and doesn't escape, making a uniform lighted glass panel (at least from the camera's perspective, remember we are talking about ir light here) The top layer is flexible so that when you press down on it the light is blocked in that spot and thus the computer can detect what points you are touching.  I said that the m$ table seemed a little costly because, unless you are trying to do some hyper-sensitive method I don't know about, all you need are enough leds to light the entire panel and a 10 mp camera.  I mean those MIT kids built one a few years back for peanuts.

[patrickl]

Apparently it uses 5 cameras and special barcodes to detect and recognize the objects on top, but I guess the bluetooth and WiFi connections will help along as well.

Microsoft Surface: 5 Important Facts you Should Know about the Microsoft's Multi-Touch

Microsoft Surface (Wikipedia)

there also is a new Jeff Han demo of his new startup Perceptive Pixel. Seeing how his site also describes Surface, I wouldn't be surprised if his startup has something to do with Surface.

[squirrellydw]

I was thinking the same thing.  Great, now I can have a pile of virtual crap on the screen underneath the real pile of crap.

Maybe it will sense all the junk, try to communicate with it and when it finds that it can't, nag you until you clean it off...


RandyT

how true 

[RandyT]

The technology is very interesting, but I hope they have someone working on a vertical (or angled) version of the device.   Artists, and even fingerpainting kids, use easels.  People may scatter photos on a table, but most will pick them up to view them.  Who reads a book, or watches a movie by laying the material on a horizontal surface and hunching themselves over it?

It might be a more powerful tool when used as a secondary video screen to interact with a vertically oriented primary one.  A true "active desktop" if you will.  Of course, it can't really be used as a desk because your legs can't go underneath due to interference with the optical path of the projector...

It will be interesting to see how well this is accepted outside of some somewhat narrowly defined commercial market segments.

RandyT

[patrickl]

Randy, try the links I gave (especially the Perceptive Pixel one). They also point to the Jeff Han version of this display and it is vertical. It doesn't have the object detection obviously, but other than that it looks almost identical.

[Zero_Hour]

The most telling indicator of the early uses of the device are in the surface home page under partners. They've got Harrah's Casinos, and IGN, who manufacture Networked Casino Games. One place where I could see the surface not being a huge cost liability is in a casino bar setting, where instead of a row of video poker machines set into the bar, you have surface-based gaming applications, that would allow a larger and more dynamic selection of games than is usually offered in that particular location. Additionally, they could deploy the tables to replace the traditional cocktail tables, which never have games installed at them, thus increasing potential gaming revenues in the bar areas of the casinos. One place where they truly love to install Gee Whiz tech is Vegas, and the surface technology is probably going to get some of its earliest and widest public exposure there as a result of these partnerships.

[RandyT]

Randy, try the links I gave (especially the Perceptive Pixel one). They also point to the Jeff Han version of this display and it is vertical. It doesn't have the object detection obviously, but other than that it looks almost identical.

I missed the Perceptive Pixel link.  That's a great demo.  However, most folks don't have a wall with 10' of dead space behind it for using this type of technology.  My comments were directed at the MS version and the notion that this will somehow "revolutionize" the way we use computers in the broader sense.  Keep in mind that even on the commercial front, people who actually work on computers are almost always awash in a sea cubicles.  The technology is expensive and has a physical footprint that can be limiting for a number of applications. 

Also, watch the individual in the demo and ignore the screen.  Using the technology is (or at least can be) a very physical undertaking.  Running across a room to accomplish something that takes moving a mouse 2" on a tabletop won't garner favor from average users.  Even on a coffee table, reaching for something is burdensome in today's "remote controlled" world.  In that sense, it's a step backwards.

RandyT

[RayB]

YES this is Jeff Han's tech, licensed to Microsoft.

Just search Popular Mechanics website for another cool demo.

[patrickl]

Randy, try the links I gave (especially the Perceptive Pixel one). They also point to the Jeff Han version of this display and it is vertical. It doesn't have the object detection obviously, but other than that it looks almost identical.

I missed the Perceptive Pixel link.  That's a great demo.  However, most folks don't have a wall with 10' of dead space behind it for using this type of technology.  My comments were directed at the MS version and the notion that this will somehow "revolutionize" the way we use computers in the broader sense.  Keep in mind that even on the commercial front, people who actually work on computers are almost always awash in a sea cubicles.  The technology is expensive and has a physical footprint that can be limiting for a number of applications. 

Also, watch the individual in the demo and ignore the screen.  Using the technology is (or at least can be) a very physical undertaking.  Running across a room to accomplish something that takes moving a mouse 2" on a tabletop won't garner favor from average users.  Even on a coffee table, reaching for something is burdensome in today's "remote controlled" world.  In that sense, it's a step backwards.

RandyT

Well I think it's two distinct applications of the technology. I really think it would be a good alternative for one of those touchscreen information terminals often seen in tourist areas. It would really work well in a hotel lobby or lounge bar or something similar.

I was wondering about usability as well. You mostly see them just messing about aimlessly in those demo's. If I actually want to do something usefull I find myself using the keyboard a lot. I wouldn't like to use an on screen keyboard for that.

The big wall would work well in brain storming session. Especially if you use a technique like mind mapping.

I think it's pretty "nifty" that you can use two hands. Besides it's in fact another cool gadget

[Lilwolf]

On NPR they interviewed the interviewer to Bill....

This was brought up...

but they said that it was smart enough (because of the camera) to know where your crap is... and doesn't use that area.

Tell me this.... How many of you have a coffee table that doesn't have the newspaper, a couple of books, the tv guide and the tv and dvd remotes on it.... as well as mabee a fruit bowl and a half eaten bar of chocolate.  Not to mention the coasters for the coffee mugs..... Who wants a whomping great monitor there insead of all the useful stuff we use the coffee table for.

I was thinking the same thing.  Great, now I can have a pile of virtual crap on the screen underneath the real pile of crap.

Maybe it will sense all the junk, try to communicate with it and when it finds that it can't, nag you until you clean it off...


RandyT

[Lilwolf]

Now these are what I would like to build

http://dundee.cs.queensu.ca/wiki/index.php/Building_a_Multi-Touch_Sensitive_Table

or some more expensive ways can be researched here..

http://www.mortalspaces.com/diytouchpanels/

The last one with led grid is pretty sweet

[coasternuts]

These aren't too hard to build.  The hardware is pretty straightforward.  The software is "in development".  I have a partial implemenation(but I'm lacking a projector ATM.) 

For some completed projects you can check NUI Group http://nuigroup.com/forums

ps.  That Data BSOD pic was excellent!