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You can play with Microsoft Surface today!

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SurfaceIf you live in New York, Atlanta, San Antonio, or San Francisco, that is.  That's because today marks the debut of Microsoft  Surface in a production, retail environment.  AT&T is using Microsoft's revolutionary Surface tabletop computing device to help consumers compare cell phones. 

The NY Times has more on what AT&T is doing here.  I have more on Microsoft Surface here.  For me, what makes Microsoft Surface is really special is that it brings 4 things together in an elegant way:

  1. Multi-touch computing  -- that is, the computer can receive and process multiple simultaneous inputs.  A traditional mouse driven human-machine interface handles only one input at a time: click here, and then click there. 
  2. Machine vision -- a series of infrared cameras inside the table make sure that the computer knows what's happening on the surface.  This is used for object recognition -- items placed on the table are identified by dot patterns stuck on the objects that the cameras capture and the PC inside the table recognizes. 
  3. The beautiful, immersive user interface.  Designed and implemented with Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF).  You may not have machine vision and multitouch on your PCs yet, but with WPF (write your own and/or use these controls) you can have beautiful, elegant applications that make your life easier and better. 
  4. The table form factor. The fact Surface is basically just a Windows Vista PC with some fancy peripherals and special mutli-touch interface is significant -- it portends a future of intelligent objects that are simply part of our environment.  Perhaps somewhere Mark Weiser is smiling?  :-)

BTW, If you don't know about Mark  Weiser's work, he's often considered the father of ubiquitous computing and identified four principles for ubiquitous computing -- listed by Wikipedia as:

    • The purpose of a computer is to help you do something else.
    • The best computer is a quiet, invisible servant.
    • The more you can do by intuition the smarter you are; the computer should extend your unconscious.
    • Technology should create calm (where "calm technology" is "that which informs but doesn't demand our focus or attention").

Technorati Tags: Surface,ubiquitous computing,multi-touch,WPF,machine vision,Mark Weiser

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