i dunno, we've had touch screens for a long time. sure their function was only cursor movement and tapping, but theres a good reason we don't use them at home. finger prints for one. and well compared to a mouse its really not necessary to raise your hand to the screen. i guess for quickly messing about and showing pics to friends on a large table screen it would be ok, but for regular picture manipulation? doesn't seem that useful really.

For once M$ has come up with something cool.

OMG way cool. Looks like that tabletop out of "The Island"

First time i saw that, i was like, i want one of those. Looks like I will, eventually.

Coolest microsoft product ever, heck, coolest product ever.

This is another "Microsoft sees cool thing, goes to clone it." From a cursory look it seems like they decided to work around the patents of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89sz8ExZndc too, probably making Surface inferior technologically.

pure sex...

so i guess u get a keyboard on screen?

That would hurt after while, with no feedback

LOL, this thing reminds me of those old Space Invaders sit down game tables you used to see at pizzerias and movie theaters.

#2.
WMP11 is the best media player I ever used

Windows Live Messenger - best messenger ever made

So no, Microsoft always come up with something cool !!!

haha I found more videos on this site, this will be so awesome

http://multi-touchscreen.com/microsoft-surface-video-multi-touch-je...

Very cool stuff. It seems that Apple is ahead of them in getting this technology into consumers' hands with iPhone, but at least this shows that Apple will eventually have some competition.

This is great, but I see it being used as a collaboration tool in engineering and architecture. Get the customer to sit with you at the table as you go through a design, it would be just friggin great!

OMG HOLY CRAP I'LL TAKE 10!!!! Can you pre-order various sizes... or are we stuck with 30"....? Cause i was just thinking "You know... this coffee table really does need replacing." But i would need one shaped approximately the same... and it would have to be able to withstand feet resting on it. I'll take 10 of whatever you have right now though! TABLE MOD!!!

www.touchtable.com

Great, now we can have cool lines like "my table just crashed last night".

In October 2005, Gates visited my campus to give a general technology talk, showing us the Xbox 360, Vista, and a concept system. This concept system was quite similar to this, with the phone/camera/pda/etc. file transfers/syncing by placing the device on the table and "moving" files between devices with your fingers. However, it was missing the multi-touch screen that this new video has. It's nice to see that this concept wasn't jsut left on the side line and it is starting to come together.

The real question that gets presented at this point though is how much of that is actually consumer ready vs. presentation ready. I would really take any presentation that they give (as with any company) with a grain of salt until independent, unbiased people are able to give this "device" a test of their own to see how well it truly works.

Wow, that's freakin awesome!

wake me up when there's holographic dinosaur games (a la Star Wars)

:)

EP

Tabletop board gaming will literately never be the same.

I've been dreaming of having a display like this for almost as long as PCs have been around. Maybe in a few years it'll become affordable enough that real people will be able to buy one.

Be sure to watch the video. That's awesome technology, and MS has taken it to a great place. Like somebody else said, it's something proverbial wisdom would expect of Apple, not MS. Major kudos to MS. Very very cool IMHO.

Call me a douche... but... a ways back, I was really worried that we'd only be seeing Macs with technology like this.