Microsoft Surface: Behind-the-Scenes First Look (with Video)

• Microsoft
• Surface
• surface computing
• computers
• Jeff Han
• iPhone
• video

Touchscreen Salesbot

After you see the Surface in action, it doesn't take long to figure out just how attractive such a machine must be to the retail and service industries. Microsoft has partnered up with cellular provider T-Mobile, as well as hotel conglomerate Starwood Hotels and Resorts (which owns Sheraton, Westin and W Hotels, among others) and Vegas casino giant Harrah's Entertainment. Machines will be ready for deployment by the end of 2007.

So you could, for instance, walk into a T-Mobile store, pick up a phone you're considering buying and place it on the Surface. The table could then either link with the phone via Bluetooth or scan a code imprinted on the packaging to identify it. Suddenly, the phone is surrounded by graphical information (pricing, features, etc.). After selecting a service plan and any accessories, you just run your credit card through a reader built into the table (or, when RFID cards have become the norm, just slap your card on the tabletop) and your new phone is paid for. By the time you open the package, everything is set up — all without talking to a single employee.

It's easy to dismiss the concept as pure novelty — and at first it may well be. But ask yourself: When was the last time you made a bank withdrawal from a human teller? The Surface machine is networked and infinitely flexible. You could use it to order food in a restaurant. While you wait, you could play games or surf the Internet, and then eat off its surface. And every table in the joint could be a jukebox, a television or a billboard for advertising. (You didn't think advertisers would miss out on this, did you?)

And once you've gotten used to ordering calamari through a tabletop at your favorite eatery, you may want to use it to call up recipes on your kitchen counter. Surface machines will cost $5000 to $10,000 at launch, but as prices fall, similar devices may find their way into the home. "We view its migration as similar to that of plasma TVs," says Pete Thompson, Microsoft's general manager for surface computing. "People will see it in public spaces like bars and restaurants and want to expand it into other environments." Its current coffee-table shape could evolve into a Pottery Barn-style catalog of computerized furniture — a dining room table, a wall-mounted panel, a desk or practically any surface. "It's a platform that can be put into various form factors," Thompson says. "This is a way to put technology into a piece of wood."

Computer scientists see technologies such as surface computing and multitouch as the key to a new era of ubiquitous computing, where processing power is embedded in almost every object and everything is interactive. Last year, New York University professor Jeff Han launched a company called Perceptive Pixel, which builds six-figure-plus custom multitouch drafting tables and enormous interactive wall displays for large corporations and military situation rooms. "I firmly believe that in the near future, we will have wallpaper displays in every hallway, in every desk. Every surface will be a point of interaction with a computer," Han says, "and for that to happen, we really need interfaces like this."

Short-term success for a technology can be measured by how much attention a product gathers when it is new. Long-term success is measured by how effectively that product disappears into the everyday routine of life. Surface computing has enormous potential to do both — it is a splashy new computer interface, surrounded by hype, but it is also, quite literally, furniture. It is a technology in its infancy, where even the engineers behind it can't predict its full impact; but the possibilities are everywhere, underhand and underfoot — on every surface imaginable.

Watch more of Glenn Derene's surface computing coverage from Microsoft HQ below, then check out his bi-weekly column, Buzzword, covering trends from multitouch interfaces to TV on the Internet and everything in between!
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