Ok what the heck is this?

The real question is: How does it recognize different drinks, mobiles etc... ? It's not like you put a bar-code on every bottle of coke saying what kind it is! In these demonstration videos, the people just put their phones on it, and it knows everything about it. Ok, their might be some way of doing this with electronical stuff (phones, laptops, PDAs etc.), but DRINKS? I mean come on! How can it tell apart apple and orange juice in the same sort glass/bottle? It doesn't have smelling-sensors, nor does it have a camera, only the touch-technology. And that isn't (by far) enough to know what you're putting on it.

I think this "Microsoft Surface" thing won't come out for at least another two years.
 
The articles I've read about it _do_ talk about such tags, though for objects put on the surface. A code consisting of a few dots. Basically, this means it does _not_ recognise unknown objects, even if they look exactly the same besides that code AFAIK.
 
Ferdinand said:
The real question is: How does it recognize different drinks, mobiles etc... ? It's not like you put a bar-code on every bottle of coke saying what kind it is! In these demonstration videos, the people just put their phones on it, and it knows everything about it. Ok, their might be some way of doing this with electronical stuff (phones, laptops, PDAs etc.), but DRINKS? I mean come on! How can it tell apart apple and orange juice in the same sort glass/bottle? It doesn't have smelling-sensors, nor does it have a camera, only the touch-technology. And that isn't (by far) enough to know what you're putting on it.

I think this "Microsoft Surface" thing won't come out for at least another two years.
Click to expand...

RFID tags. The phone had wifi which explains how they transferred pictures from it.

Personally, I liked the one by some guy at MIT that worked on the same multitouch concept. His was using touch screen tech. and Microsoft's uses 5 different cameras to sense the motion. Probably one of the reasons it costs so much.
 
I think this is a cool thing to have in a bar/resturant... but in the home? imagine having to plug a table in? I bet it even has one of those mag safe leads :D If a girl was round your house a put a drink on a table and it lit up, she would be freaked out and plus it will make you look like a complete nerd.
 
Gizmodo has posted a video demo of someone who has adapted the surface technology into a laptop.

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/touch-me...-laptop-based-on-the-surface-table-271065.php

looks great. obviously early days -- the GUI of modern OS's is not set up for this, and it does not seem very responsive -- but very cool.

I was reading up on the Surface technology earlier this week and they use cameras rather than touch sensors to detect movement. I'm no engineer, but doesn't this seem over-complicated? They say they use cameras so that they can detect multiple touch areas at the same time -- but I don't see why you can't detect multiple touch sources using a sensor pad (an example of this is MacBooks which scroll when it detects 2 finders on the touchpad).

From what I have read it seems their technology uses similar techniques to those used for things like the EyeToy -- where software analyses each frame from a streaming video and detects the pixel differences between one frame and the next to calculate which objects are moving. It just seems like an inelegant solution to me as it is far less precise than a sensor grid. I wouldn't think it would do a good job with quick movements (such as typing on a touch screen). You could see from the video above when they showed the video of what the computer is seeing -- it lacked accuracy and responsiveness.

agree, disagree?
 
Didn't Apple patent the multi-touch technology and everything, because this "pinching" and "stretching" stuff is used by the iPhone!

PS: TTC: I agree with you - the first time he clicked, the computer didn't even respond! Only when he pointed it directly to the middle of the screen did it work...
 
Nice flash presentation with actors pretending to actually use the touch screen...

"And Action:
Key the the actor to touch the glass table..."NOW!"...
Ahhh you missed it again... CUT CUT CUT....
ok from the top TAKE 1049..."

You guys know where i am coming from!

Warmly,

CaribbeanOS-X
 
I am pretty sure Apple have similar ideas. However, they would have to be pretty sure these things will sell before investing millions into their developement.

I personally like the concept, but I would rather have the hardware powered by MacOS than Vista (or Vienna, whatever).
 
Recent rumours state that Apple's working on a multitouch mouse. I guess that's a more decent (and much simpler and less expensive) way of implementing gestures to the user interface.
 
It is cool, but Apple is the first out with a similar UI in the iPhone. The iPhone is essentially a surface, just a small one. In addition, Apple already has hardware that is flat and thin - think iMacs. Now tie in the best UI design on the planet and I'd put my money on Apple getting something else out that is better and perhaps even sooner than MS.
 
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