Multi-touch devices have come of age and taken the form of an interactive, highly intuitive computer called the Microsoft Surface,
Picture a surface that can recognize physical objects from a paintbrush to a cell phone and allows hands-on, direct control of content such as photos, music and more. This is where Microsoft’s Surface, a new category of surface computing product come into play as it breaks down traditional barriers between people and technology. Today consumers can interact with Microsoft Surface at select AT&T retail locations, the iBar in the Rio All Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas and select Sheraton locations.
Ability to touch and play with a computer has been a fascinating thing for long but seldom useful. Although we have a plethora of touch devices in the market, most of them are single touch, shrinking the already minimal usability of the technology. With the iPhone, we got the opportunity to use a dual touch, enabling features that are more sophisticated. Dual touch gave the much-desired capabilities to the iPhone to an extent that an iPhone user just yawns at any other touch devices available in the market.
Coming to PCs, we have seen and experienced many tablet PCs with touch capabilities and the HP TouchSmart PC that makes a desktop work like a tablet PC. While, these devices may be good for some specific tasks, they do not give you the interactive experience offered by say an iPhone. To bring the same capabilities (or higher) into the PC, Microsoft started work on a multi-touch computer called Microsoft Surface, way back in 2001 (long before the iPhone was launched), which not just recognizes multiple touch, but also recognizes the objects placed on it. According to Diptarup Chakraborti, Principal Research Analyst at Gartner, “Microsoft feels keyboards and mouse would soon be passé and that touch and speech would be the next wave in computing going forward. Surface Computing is an extension for touch that Microsoft envisaged.”
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