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Secondlight, Microsoft's New Surface Prototype
Barence writes "Microsoft has literally added another dimension to its touchscreen table technology Surface. The new table projects an image through the table itself, so that any translucent material (such as tracing paper or perspex) held above the Surface screen displays a different image to what you see on the table's display. This means you can have a satellite image of a town on the table, and have the street names projected on to a piece of paper that the user holds above the map. Or you could have a photo of a car, with the tracing paper displaying images of its innards."
...since when did companies routinely invest in research and then give the results away for free, unless there was some other way to make money off it?
Now, I can display one image on the large-format table, while I struggle to manually hold a 36" x 48" piece of frigging tracing paper a few inches over it, thereby rendering the tracing-paper image impractical, and the other image invisible!
Damn! Why didn't I think of that?? I would be RICH!!!
Rich, I tell you!
I dunno, the actual technology seems really simple. But on the other hand it is rather innovative and I'ce never seen it before. Anyways it's a hell of alot more deserving then alot of the other patents that get handed out these days.
I may agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to face the consequences of saying it.
My guess: since the dawn of time
Apparently they only stopped doing so in 1623.