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Sony Shows Off Primitive Surface Computer, Pats Self On Back

Ryan Whitwam — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:47:14 -0600

Color us a little confused by this one. Sony has been showing off a surface computer of sorts. The system was constructed with Atracsys and utilizes a camera to track the locations of your fingers, meaning you don’t have to physically touch anything. For some reason, it’s being shown off on a table top… that you touch.

Sony/ Atracsys also showed how the camera system can track facial movements and even calculate mood. The point seems to be that you could interact with a computer without actually touching it. This would be invaluable in an operating room, for example, where sterility must be maintained. Sort of like Natal on the Xbox, apparently. Despite what they’re saying the camera tracking is capable of, Sony is making it look like a glorified Microsoft Surface. Check out the story link above to see the demo video.

Redmond Sweetens Deal for Windows 7 Touch PC Buyers with Touch Pack

Mark Edward Soper — Fri, 29 May 2009 15:41:22 -0500

You've seen the demos of multitouch, and you might even have a PC that supports Windows 7's multitouch, but what can you do with it? If you're in the market for a PC that supports multi-touch, Microsoft is making a multitouch PC even more appealing by announcing its Microsoft Touch Pack for Windows 7.

Microsoft Touch Pack is a product of the collaboration between the Windows and Surface development teams, and as a result, Microsoft Touch Pack includes three Microsoft Surface applications and three casual games. Here's what you get:

Microsoft Surface Globe enables you to navigate the Virtual Earth 3D version of the world by touch, and lets you get local information as you "fly" by particular places.
Microsoft Surface Collage brings one of the original Microsoft Surface "touch and move the photos" demos to life, adding the ability to convert a collage into a desktop background.
Microsoft Surface Lagoon is a multi-touch enabled screensaver - watch fish gather around your "submerged" finger.
Casual gamers can enjoy the Rube Goldbergesque Microsoft Blackboard, a mashup of death rays and air hockey in Microsoft Rebound, and float origami on the water in Microsoft Garden Pond.

Who gets first crack at the Microsoft Touch Pack? From the Windows Team blog annoucement:

The Microsoft Touch Pack for Windows 7 will be available to PC makers (OEMs) who will have the option to pre-install some, none, or all of the applications available in the Microsoft Touch Pack for Windows 7 on PCs designed for Windows Touch (PCs that meet the logo requirements for Windows Touch) – so you should start to see these applications showing up on some touch PCs around the time Windows 7 is made broadly available. After general availability of Windows 7, we will look at making the Microsoft Touch Pack for Windows 7 even more broadly available based on feedback from customers and partners.

Hopefully, the Microsoft Touch Pack will become available via download at some point for those of us with existing multitouch-compatible PCs. In the meantime, if you're getting ready to buy a PC with a touchscreen after Windows 7 rolls out this fall, you now have two questions to ask:

Does it support multi-touch?
Does it include Microsoft Touch Pack for Windows 7?

Hit Comment and tell us what you think about Touch Pack.

Epson Develops a Rival to Microsoft Surface

Andy Salisbury — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 16:38:49 -0500

It looks like Microsoft’s Surface won’t be the only computer in the interactive touch-sensitive table market; Epson has recently announced their very own offering, the xDesk.

Aside from having an extremely cheesy name, the xDesk offers some pretty solid features for a machine of this caliber including a 52-inch, 1024x768 touch screen that can communicate with gadgets such as phones and cameras placed onto its surface, and the ability to recognize gesture recognition, allowing multiple users to drag around photos or draw. It’ll also transfer audio and video wirelessly though Bluetooth 2.1, but if you’d rather go the wired route and use FireWire or one of the five USB 2.0 ports, that works fine too.

Underneath the hood you’ll find a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 1GB of DDR2 memory, a 250GB HDD and an ATI HD 4850 GPU. Though, as for pricing and availability, there’s still no word.

Also, if you’d like to see a video if it in action, be sure to click here.

Image Credit: Epson

Microsoft Bestowed with 10,000th Patent

Pulkit Chandna — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 19:15:40 -0600

Microsoft has reached a major landmark after receiving its 10,000th U.S patent. The software bellwether has cemented its place among top patent recipients in the last five years; it is the fourth highest patent getter in the U.S. The 10,000th patent concerns a technology that allows a Microsoft Surface-like computer to discern real objects and link them with data or media. Microsoft can be expected to move up the ladder in the near future as it has a policy of incentivizing employees for patent filings.

Image Credit: Homotron

Coming Soon: Customize Your Next Bimmer with Microsoft Surface

Mark Edward Soper — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:53:49 -0600

Configuring your next BMW isn't as easy as touching a table yet, but in the near future, it probably will be. BMW has released a video of its prototype BMW Product Navigator (aka BMW Konfigurator), which is powered by Microsoft Surface and designed by Vectorform, which created the interactive 2008 election map used by MSNBC.

As with the 2008 MSNBC project, Vectorform's BMW Product Navigator uses Microsoft Surface to manipulate video that is then shown on an HDTV. With the BMW Product Navigator, you place chips representing product options on the Microsoft Surface tabletop computer, and the changes you make affect the BMW shown on the video screen. And, just so you can make sure you're buying the Bimmer you want, Product Navigator can email you your custom configuration, print it, or copy it to a USB flash memory drive.

Although there's no official word yet on how soon Navigator will make its way to your local BMW dealer, the combination of interactivity and video presentation it represents makes for a powerful sales and product research tool. As this parody of the original Microsoft Surface promotional video suggests, Microsoft Surface makes a lot more sense as a business tool than as a home computer, at least at current prices.

So, are you ready to gesture your way to your own personal "ultimate driving machine?" Hit Comment and tell us.

Image courtesy Engadget.

Redmond Turns Microsoft Surface "Up to 11" with SecondLight

Mark Edward Soper — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:31:13 -0500

Microsoft Surface has already been transformed from its original tabletop multitouch interface to a spherical computer, and this week's PDC added even more excitement with the introduction of SecondLight, the next phase in Surface's development.

As the UK's PC Pro website puts it, SecondLight is like "Surface on steroids." A product of Microsoft's Cambridge, England research labs, SecondLight projects an image through the table, enabling a translucent surface placed on top of the Surface tabletop to display additional information, such as place names, an interior view of an object, and much more.

How does SecondLight work? According to PC Magazine:

The key technology, however, is a switchable diffuser, the same technology that is sometimes used in office buildings or in nightclubs as partitions. Specifically, SecondLight uses polymer stabilized cholesteric textured liquid crystal (PSCT-LC), tied to an optical switch.

When diffuse, the glass is frosted. But when a voltage is applied via the switch, the liquid crystal molecules align and allow light to pass through, becoming clear.

Normally, the Surface display itself serves as a projection screen. But SecondLight's optical switch rapidly flips the display between translucent and clear at 60 hertz (the same refresh rate as a PC's monitor), fooling the eye into creating both the traditional Surface display as well as secondary images projected onto the "magic lenses," which themselves serve as projection screens.

The secondary display can also be used as a multitouch surface.

See a video demonstration of SecondLight (WMV format for Windows Media Player) at the Microsoft Research website. Prefer pictures? Visit Daniel Melanchthon's TechNet blog (but keep a window open for Babelfish or other translation software, as the site's mostly in German). You can also download a PDF copy of the paper presented at PDC from the Microsoft PressPass website.

Have you seen Surface yet? What do you think about the possibilities in what some are dubbing "Surface 2.0?" Hit Comment and tell us what you think about letting your fingers do the walking through the data.

Photos courtesy of Daniel Melachthon and Microsoft Research.

Five Sheraton Hotels Install Surface Computers

Pulkit Chandna — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 10:42:35 -0500

Microsoft’s touch-sensitive Surface platform received a major shot in the arm with Starwood hotels, which owns the Sheraton chain of hotels, agreeing to install Surface machines at its hotels. The first lot of Surface machines reached five different Sheraton Hotels on August 13th, 2008. Using these Surface-enabled tables, guests can find information about the restaurant, listen to music, or chart their course through the hotel premises. However, Craig Parker, general manger of Sheraton Gateway Hotel SFO, did acknowledge that the guests might take some time to get accustomed to the Surface computers.

Each Surface computer is reported to have cost Starwood around $10,000. As the machine is made to order, there is always a possibility for change and evolution. Perhaps they can include games to keep the guests riveted. Also lending individuality – or a personality – to the table using interactive 3D characters might be a wonderful business idea as guests might even leave a tip for the table then - not really.