You Can't Touch This Microsoft Surface - The Touch Screen of the Future is Here

Remember in Minority Report where Chief John Anderton (Tom Cruise) had the fantastic privilege to use those crazy multi-touch screens? If your a geek like me, that must have just blown your mind! Watching John as he was sliding, moving, rotating, flipping all that stuff around? Wait no more the technology has arrived! Thanks to Microsoft and their very cool new toy called the 'Microsoft Surface'.

This technology is going to change how we work with computers as we know it.

Forget about your mouse, and your keyboard. Who needs them anyway? These days all you need to do your computing is your hands. No more 'Click and Dragging', thats old school. Now days its all about 'Touch and Dragging'. You simply touch, and drag around the Surface to sort your photos, music, and data. Pretty cool, hunh?

One of the coolest features of the Microsoft Surface is multi-touch technology. Using both hands you can scale, rotate, and flip photos around. How bout Google Earthing, with nothing but your hands to spin, tilt, and zoom in and out? If thats not cool enough how about its ability to touch and drag virtual content into real, physical objects, such as a camera, or a phone. No USB ports here. Just plop your camera on the surface, and watch the photos spill out onto the Surface. Touch, and drag them around. Scale them from big to small, flip it over, write something on the back using only your fingers, and email a post card to your Dad! How you like them beans? Want to share some photos, or music with your friends? No problem. Its almost too cool. Just watch as you touch, and drag your mp3s into your friends mp3 player. You can almost touch it.

I'd love to see this technology implement the use of pressure sensitive Pen Pads, similar to those produce by WACOM, as it would add just one more dimension to the Microsoft Surface. Can you imagine using applications like Adobe Photoshop on the Surface? The work flow would feel a lot smoother, and more natural. Perhaps in the next generation of Surface tables.

Want to be first to won one? Well, if you have a deep pocket book look to shell out anywhere from $5000-$10,000 for this funky new toy. As with all technology though, if you wait long enough, or short enough you can count on picking one up for quite a bit less then that.

If your wallet isn't that thick then keep an eye out for them in the commercial scene as they will be popping up slowly in hotels, bars, and stores by then end of 2007.

The bridge between the real world, and the virtual world just got shorter with the arrival of the Microsoft Surface.