The Beta News

Microsoft has annouced it first surface computing product – Microsoft Surface.

The technology behind it was presented last year by Jefferson Han, the founder of Perceptivepixel, but now Microsoft has given it a name and adopted the technology.

Direct Interaction

Microsoft gives examples of ordering a drink during a meal with just the tap of a finger and quickly browsing through music and dragging favorite songs onto a personal playlist by moving a finger across the table.

Hardware Recognition

It is more of a object recognition. You can place different object on the Surface and it will trigger different digital responses. Like “Paint” if you place a brush, a picture manager if you place a camera or a map if it is your PDA. You can even transfer data between the Surface and the object. (Except the brush I think, those are still analoge)

Multi-touch

On the regular touch screen you can only use one finger, but Surface recognises many points of contact as the video below demonstrates. That also means that more users can work on it at the same time.

What is it good for?

The practical uses for Surface is at hotels, restaurants, general public entertainment, retail and sale establishments. It will be available at Harrahs and Starwood Casinos and selected T-Mobile stores soon and is expected to be comercially available at the end of the year. Unfortunately it isn’t ready for the home consumer yet.