Minority
This is cool, Microsoft Surface. Basically it’s a big touch-screen interface, installed on a table. There are cameras mounted underneath the table which look up and can then sense all the things that you, or somebody else, is doing. It’s multi-touch, so lots of people can be using it at the same time. The simplest comparison is Minority Report, flicking through photographs and documents on a screen using nothing but your hands.
The best demo is when they pick up a camera, take a photograph with it, and then just sit it somewhere on the table. The photographs are then automatically downloaded from the camera and appear to spill out of the bottom of it onto the table. They can then be manipulated, moved around, zoomed, even videos play. Then a PDA is placed down on the other side of the table and the photographs are dragged across and virtually pushed into the device, which then downloads them. Really, you have to see this for yourself, describing it just isn’t the same.
$10,000 at the moment, mostly aimed at businesses like casinos, but in five years time this could be something that lots of people have in their home. Rarely does Microsoft come up with something that feels so futuristic.
