After Apple blew the world away with the multi-touch interface in the much-touted iPhone, everyone was now talking about the next greatest thing in computing – the multi-touch interface.
Not wanting to be left out, Microsoft embarked on its own touchy endeavor (pun intended) to bring out the next big thing to woo the prosumer market – the Microsoft Surface.
You probably heard all about Surface; it’s been all over the news and splashed on computer magazines, even on TV. So much so that you’d run the risk of being such a dinosaur for not having even known it. Hailed as one of the biggest things to happen to computers, the Surface promises (like all good things) to make your interaction more fluid than ever by using hand gestures and touch to display, organize and view photos and other graphic media, giving you the impression of actually touching your data.
According to the demo shown, the system is so neat it automatically recognizes a camera placed on top of it, and downloads the pictures to its ‘surface’, after which you can probably view them by waving your hand at it or dragging it to the center. Impressive, huh?
Now here’s where the fun ends: okay so you’ve got your pictures and stuff, now what? Unfortunately we can’t answer that one because frankly no one seems to know. Beneath the swanky touch-sensitive screen and multitude of mini-cameras that make up the gesture processing unit, there doesn’t seem to be much save a very ordinary computer. I’m hoping someone will prove I’m wrong here because if it really is just this much, this doesn’t seem to be much more than an interface.
And let’s face it; touching or typing it, interfaces are only part of the system – they don’t make up the complete thing. But that remains to be seen. For now, at the rate Surface is gaining momentum, it probably wont be long before you shake your pc screen to wake it and ‘Touch here to continue’
Labels: Technology
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