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Microsoft's Multitouch Coffee Table Display
longacre writes "Popular Mechanics takes the Microsoft Surface system for a hands-on video test drive. To be announced at today's D5 conference, the coffee-table-esqe device allows manipulation from multiple touch points, while infrared, WiFi and Bluetooth team up to allow wireless transfers between devices placed on top of it, such as cameras and cell phones. Expected to launch before the end of the year in the $5,000-$10,000 range, the devices might not make their way under many Christmas trees, but will find the insides of Starwood hotels, Harrah's casinos and T-Mobile shops."
Wow, that's annoying. I wrote a computer display coffee-table into a science-fiction story that I just finished writing, and now everybody's going to think I just steal ideas from reading Slashdot.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Yes that video was Jeff Han (also featured in the video in TFA) demoing his display a year or two ago.
http://cs.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirsense/
There ya go.
And there was yet another that allowed you to mix music and create synthesized effects in real time by arranging various oddly-shaped prisms on the surface. I have two (large) videos of that but I don't know where they came from.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
Jeff Han might disagree.
It is just about nine months since: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/65
But like rearing a child, we'll see the person in 5 to seven years... Or, in a month when the iPhone is released.
You are very correct! The concept has been toyed with, in idea and a few tests, but Microsoft is getting this out of concept phase and bringing what looks to be a usable product to market. The comparisons (slams) I am seeing to touchscreens is unwarranted and simply ignorant of what this product is, does and could potentially do. I am so tired of the constant Microsoft bashing - even though I am certainly no fan myself.
The size of the table top screen itself is intriguing to me...
I find this very interesting from a marketing perspective. They are promoting this as if it was a product, and yet it isn't on sale - and even the implementations they are talking about (T-Mobile, Sheraton Hotels) are really trials with partners that won't be happening until the end of next year.
So what is this all about? The Vista and Office '07 launches haven't gone well from a marketing perspective - there has been a lot of press basically saying that Microsoft is losing its competitive edge. Couple that with the iPhone, and the fact that Apple is almost certainly going to be launching new products with multi-touch capabilities over the next year or so, and I think it is clear what is going on. Microsoft really want to improve their image in relation to Apple - they don't want Apple to be seen as the innovator and them as the company that's lost it.
Notice on the website that they have a section called "origins" giving the history of the technology within Microsoft - I think they are trying to reverse the image that they copy Apple. Now when the touch-screen iMac is launched (or whatever) Microsoft will have done a fairly good job at taking some of the shine off the launch, even though they don't have a consumer product in the area, nor will they have for some years.
Note, I am not saying that Microsoft are not serious about this as a product -- just that this news launch (about a product that doesn't exist) is all about addressing people's perceptions of the company, and trying to piss on Apple's fire a bit.
Microsoft has a long history of announcing new technologies long before they really exist in order to prevent a competitor from gaining marketing hype and momentum. This strategy goes right back to the earliest Windows versions -- you can read lots about this from an MS programmer's perspective in Barbarians.
Since Apple is about to announce their "top secret" features in Leopard, it seems obvious it will be this sort of touch screen technology and that Microsoft is trying to steal Apple's thunder by announcing this vaperware.
boxlight
At the time, there were some utilities that could help with housekeeping in the game, but it was really clunky to have a whole computer there behind the DM's screen. Imagine, your character sheet and virtual dice right in front of you; automated tracking for dice rolls, combat and spell recovery; fancy graphics for your map, characters, and monsters; maybe even a soundtrack and audio effects.
And yes, WoW has all the features I just described, and more, but the element of everyone getting together around a table and playing face-to-face cannot be replaced.
Needless to say, I want one of these, especially for when I retire and go back to gaming full-time :-).
Apple has been patenting the hell out of the multitouch UI concept, and I can't imagine this is going to slip by Steve Jobs without a fight. Apple purchased FingerWorks and owns most of the concepts shown in that video.
Hidden in the recent demo for the Iphone was a glimpse of Apple's multitouch technology. If you knew where to look, it was hidden in plain site during the demo of the photo album and rolodex functions.
Now, excuse me while I try to nudge my mouse with my mouth...
You can't take the sky from me...
This was exciting and appeared to work much better when I saw it for the first time last year.
Check out the Jeff Han video from last year then watch the MS video.. The original is a much smoother interface.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/65
Yeah MS added some fluff by making it interact with devices placed on top the the basic idea is not some new "Top Secret" project
If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur. --Red Adair
In Tron, didn't the CEO guy have the display built into his office desk, with a recessed membrane-style keyboard?
Granted it only displayed VT-100, but it was still the first example I remember of a useful PC built into the furniture.
(yes, those old coctail arcade machines were cool (especially tennis) but I don't consider them a "PC")
Firstly, let me say I think the software demos look fantastic. However...
Is it just me, or does the choice of hardware technologies seem a bit, well, crappy? Back projection - that means the table itself is huge underneath - if you're eating in a restaurant you want a table you can streach your legs under.
And infa-red cameras tracking the movement..? Notice when they do the paint demo - it looks like the system isn't actually very accurate. They do blobby finger painting, but if I was going to buy ones of these I would want something I could draw fine, accurate lines on with a pen. And I'm not convinced of the idea of having to put barcodes on everything so the system can recognise them.
Surely a flat-screen technology (TFT, Plasma, whatever) coupled with one of the newer multi-touch sensitive technologies would be better?
this emerged at least partially out of their previous efforts with "media pcs." On of the obvious (but largely unspoken) problem they ran into there is that the PC with mouse and keyboard is just a shitty way to interact with media. Touchscreens, on the other hand, obviously aren't. So I think that despite the fact that they are initially of course selling this only to businesses, that will be the ultimate placement of this technology. It finally allows people to look at video, music, photos, etc, on a living room computer in a way that doesn't clash immensely with the intended atmosphere of the room. So bravo to Microsoft for making an appealing product, it'll be interesting to see what Apple's response is if this table ultimately becomes successful, as media is one of Apple's important domains. But either way, it's one of the few times MS may not be lying when they say a new paradigm is arriving. Should be fun to watch.
Relax I just want some peanuts.
This is actually quite interesting technology. It has been conceived before - but only that - conceived. This is one time Microsoft gets kudos.
Not quite. Even tho Microsoft was the first to market with something in the $10,000 range for places like Vegas. I wonder what the Blue Screens look like?
More info the MS product here, here and here.
I imagine that Jeff Han's own Fascinating multi-touch system just might not use Windows as a fundamental foundation. Don't forget about the 16 foot long interactive wall So I can imagine several patent fights coming out of this, even though the research lines are likely independent. Microsoft might even get accused of stealing somebody else's research, regardless of the facts.
Of course, this happens a little while after Apple revealed their own multitouch interface. Microsoft must hate that. After all, Microsoft can't get a patent on the use of fingers, even tho they can try.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Oh Cripes, throw me a technology idea that no one else has thought of first. I challenge you. It's likely that I can name some obscure program on my Amiga or find a Star Trek gadget that did the same thing. Computer software and hardware is evolutionary, and ideas that come to market are almost never ever completely original. The point is, who can polish the idea, make it usable and find a market willing to pay the price for it first.
I don't think anyone (including Microsoft) is saying they invented the technology. That doesn't make the product any less interesting. Sometimes it takes a big company to realize ideas of people who have little chance of bringing the idea to fruition. A table-top computer is hardly a novel idea, but something a lot of people have been waiting for a long time.
And it's built from the same Carbon, Oxygen, Nitrogen, and Hydrogen that everything else is built from, too! Jeez, can't Microsoft come up with some original atoms to use???
E pluribus unum
I work in the A&E field, and having a drafting board like this (though with a stylus) would be _very_ cool, indeed. Bump up that resolution (150-200dpi, like my laptop) and make it in a 16:10 with 26" or 32" vertical dimension and it would be a lot like drafting on paper. The extra real estate with a 16:9 would allow a real size "sheet" of space with room on the side for toolbars and/or palettes. I drool just thinking about it.
Oh, sure, you'd need an insane adapter to drive it (with about 4800x7680 resolution - QuadHD), but that's just the way things are. Now that I come to think of it, it might be useful for digital photo/image manipulation. At 200dpi, you could work with the images from the newest Hasselblad digitals at 1:1 pixel mapping. And, hey, if you've got $32k to drop on a camera body, you may as well pony up for the post processing, right?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Many things look quite impressive in the context of a demo. The MIT Media Lab has been pulling off absolutely stunning demos for... is it a decade now? Very few of them have led directly to anything real. There's no way to tell whether this is the sort of thing like Clippy that is an impressive demo but not a useful product. But the comment that "the company's unofficial Surface showman, Jeff Gattis is a clean-cut fellow who is obviously the veteran of a thousand marketing seminars" is not confidence-inspiring. It would be much more impressive if they had demonstrated the product by letting half-a-dozen people, with no training, who had never seen the product before, try to use it.
There are some very obvious practical issues. With a vertically-oriented touchscreen, the issue was what sort of gadget you could use to prop your hands so that your arms wouldn't be trembling an aching in half an hour.
WIth a horizontally-oriented table-sized touch screen, the obvious issue is that if you put it under a thick sheet of Lexan it won't be touch-sensitive any more... and if you don't put it under a thick sheet of Lexan it won't be touch-sensitive for long.
It would be an interesting contest to see whether one of these $10,000 gadgets lasts longer in a typical American home or in a "Starwood hotel, Harrah's casino or T-Mobile shops." I figure a week, tops, before someone spills a cocktail on it or tries to see whether they can operate it with their butt.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
4Z5TX
True, but the "fluff" is exactly the point. There are always two parts to a successful project: implementation and presentation. Geeks are going to flip out over the implementation, but if it is going to be presented to the general public, it has to be in a slick package, and it has to have the bells and whistles -- the "fluff" -- that make people go "oooooohhhh". Consider the iPod, which was absolutely nothing new (as witnessed by CmdrTaco's infamous offhand comment). But Apple took an existing technology and wrapped it in a shiny case and interface, and sales exploded.
It is those little stupid things, like the soft glowing ring around a drink set on the table, or the little ripple effect when a finger hits it, or the way the pictures "explode" out of the camera when it is set down, that will make Joe Six-Pack sit up and pull out his wallet.
And honestly, you think having the Surface interact with devices set on it is "fluff"? As I said above, the little graphical flourishes that happen are definitely fluff, but the concept of merely having to set a device down on the table for them to communicate is utterly simple and intuitive. I'd say that's a huge point in Surface's favor.
I *really* hope no one else has thought of that.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
"What is interesting is the application (implementation, and that anyone could write apps for it (as opposed to iPhone, for example)." ...and for the multitouch implementation to track more than two inputs (as opposed to the iPhone, for example) and use a screen larger than a postage stamp (as opposed to the iPhone, for example).
Apple is using multitouch as a gimmick to create buzz. It doesn't actually do anything useful.
There are applications for this sort of thing, but finger-painting isn't it.
Given that the basic property of this device is that output resolution is good and screen size is large, and input resolution is poor but you can use multiple touches, an obvious application is video editing. An interface for quickly putting together a news show would find a high-end market. There are tools for this now, like Avid NewsCutter, but they rely heavily on keyboard commands and have too many modes.
The big advantage of multi-touch is that it's a way out of the mode limitations of a single-pointer interface. Right now, your options are usually verb-object (get into mode, select thing), or object-verb (select thing, go to menu to indicate what to do with it.) This breaks down when you need to talk about more than one thing at a time. With multi-touch, there are more options.
Somebody will probably do a DJ console with this interface.
I disagree with the statement that the ideas have only been demonstrated too. We have been working with vendors for the last 3+ years on a multi-touch table and about 1.5 years with a multi-user, multi-touch video wall. We use Google Earth, Satellite ToolKit (STK), and a collaboration application (mark up of imagery related data) on both of them. I was very surprised to see Microsoft touting this when we have been working with this technology from multiple vendors now for a while. The only new feature as you mentioned is the wireless transfer of pictures to the device with it recognizing where the device was on the screen, and I'm not sure that it is very useful. When I transfer data, I want to store it in a directory structure or a database system rather than where I set the camera.
Apple is using multitouch as a gimmick to create buzz. It doesn't actually do anything useful. Nothing like some facile Apple-bashing. Watch the Apple demos to see how useful multitouch is for a cell phone. And Apple's "postage stamp"-size screen will be something I can own myself & use every day, as opposed to the MS display, which costs $5k-$10k.
Yea this stuff has been around for years: http://www.touchtable.com/site/index.php http://www.ms.northropgrumman.com/touchtable/ http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldie rtech_TouchTable,,00.html
http://www.merl.com/projects/DiamondTouch/
The Mitsubishi one can recognize multiple users. I've used it and it's pretty cool.
Touch tables are nothing new but it would be cool to see Microsoft start marketing this to consumers.
Bad news - that's no table, that's the new Zune Phone rumored for so long to compete against the iPhone!
Llama or sherpa not included.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Each little touch you mentioned, while contributing its own degrees of wow-factor to the package, also contributes functionality.
The glowing ring -- confirmation of an established connection. Ripple effect -- an interstitial "sandbox" to ease users into this mode of interaction. Exploding pictures -- making it clear that the photos aren't being simply triggered by the phone's contact with the surface, obviously establishing their source as the phone itself.
Sure, you could pop up a centered Windows dialog for the first, have a guided tutorial for the second, and just draw in the photos starting in the upper left for the last. But the animated flourishes actually carry information, improving the interface's functionality.
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
They do this with regular magnets in cows to make the small pieces of metal that they eat all get clumped together so that they can be removed with a simple surgery rather than individually.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.