A neat, real-world, desktop from Microsoft. http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4217348.html

Sweet!!  But it'll have to wait until the price comes down ALOT!!!!!

Yeah,.......very cool. Sort of reminds me of the machines in "Minority Report".

I wonder if they copied this idea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thA_Oox1Cfc

Didn't someone else post a link to a demonstration of the same technology a while back? Only, in that video, it was upright, not a table top, and it was in a conference environment, and the guy demonstrating it also demonstrated a 3D modelling program where he just doodled some lines with his fingers and somehow turned the lines into 3D model monsters.

Would love to find that video now, but don't know what terms to use in the search.

Anyway ... it looks like they came a long way. They didn't have the wireless feature in the earlier video.

@ aprilgem: I think AgentSmith posted that link to that video. The link I posted does have several video clips, but the one in particular in the first page is different than the link in the thread you are thinking about, and it should be different... as the article says the Microsoft coffee table was kept secret and just announced in some conference recently.

The last video in the link is terrible, but the one on page two isn't too bad. page 1 has the best one that demonstrates the table and the software Surface.

Awesome!

ok that looks like somethin iv seen ages ago from apple? i wonder whats the new thing about it....

In what way?

I'd probably just spill beer onto it and ruin it anyway.

Sun Microsystems was working on a similar interface some time back.

Yeah, the idea has been around for a while. I remember watching TRON and the evil human had a big desk desk kinda like that. There's nightclubs in Las Vegas that use some pretty nice effects with tables that seem to react to items placed on it, images display in shadows, photos scrolling/rotating as they travel down the bar.... I think MIT was doing something with this a while ago. Anyway, it's all neat and I'm happy someone is trying to market it instead of keeping it as an R&D concept.

oh i found out whats new. this one's not a touchscreen, it uses near-infrared camera's to simulate touchscreen-like capabilities, but in fact the technology behind it is really not touch-screen technology at all! and apparently the apple thing didnt have object features yet either.. or such... ah well. at $5000-$10000 estimate its outta my pricerange for now lol

I completely forgot about the IR touchscreen-like feature.

Yep, that $5,000 to $10,000 USD is a bit steep... If I did buy one, I would feel guilty. Now if I was a trekker and had.. say.. a condo in the Star Trek look.. yes, certainly one and no guilt factor. ;-)

That's cool. I've seen a similar if not same concept used for a new type of electronic music device. As for this thing in general, It's priced out of the home user market for now but I could see where museums would love to have something like this. It's like some of the current touchscreens, but with a lot more capability.

Also this would be a neat thing to have at a studio where portfolios are reviewed. That photo bit already shows that.