Microsoft's giant touchscreen

Microsoft is trying to out iPhone the iPhone. The software company, not renowned for its slick interfaces, has built a piece of equipment that will turn any flat surface into a giant touch-sensitive screen.

Michael Arrington, of the TechCrunch blog, got a sneak preview of Touchwall, due to be unveiled at Microsoft’s headquarters today. His video demonstration (above) shows off the screen's capabilities.

Users will scroll through content by caressing the surface and zoom in by sweeping their hands apart in an amplified version of the finger-pinching motion used on the Apple iPhone. Tapping on images, videos or documents embedded in the surface brings them up to full-screen size, while digital drawing tools allow users to add text and free-hand illustrations.

Microsoft's demonstration focused on office applications, but with a little imagination the device could easily be yoked up to gaming and home entertainment systems.

Unlike Surface, Microsoft’s sophisticated but prohibitively expensive table-top computing system, Touchwall has been put together using hardware costing only a few hundred dollars: three infrared lasers and an infrared camera. The lasers project a mesh of beams over the front of the surface, while the camera detects when and where the beams are broken.

Inexplicably, Microsoft said it had no current plans to put Touchwall into production.

Comments

[Rob Salter]

Mmm, this is hardly impressive, compared to this: http://www.perceptivepixel.com/

[High Technology Gal]

I want one of those for the office, what fun!! Maybe it would work as a gaming platform?

[Jesse]

A guy named Johnny Lee has also created a multi touch interactive whiteboard/wall using just a wii remote, a computer (with free software he wrote), and a projector.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/wii/

[Simon]

I just visited the link using the Wii Remote - that was astonishing!

[AQ42]

>> Touchwall has been put together using hardware costing only a few hundred dollars

>> Microsoft said it had no current plans to put Touchwall into production

Could these be related?

[Alex Kerr]

This continues the notion that Microsoft are incapable of originality or innovation, despite their claims to the contrary. Others have previously produced such technology cheaper, better and faster, and in products that you can buy now. Microsoft are fast becoming a total joke in the tech world.

[Josh Muller]

Microsoft's innovation track record is abysmal, its business practices are questionable at best, and its quality control non-existent. The best work is being done elsewhere, including open-source projects, which Microsoft does its best to crush.

It is high time that reputable journalists ceased giving Microsoft free publicity and began reporting what Apple, Sun, and the open-source movement are achieving. Perhaps there are fewer 'freebies' available from those quarters.

[Matt]

Open source software gives the impression that all software should be free, creating good software that conforms to the specification of the client takes a lot of time and effort, and at the end of the day developers have bills to pay.

Microsoft have done a lot more for the computing industry than your average open source avodcate who simply hate everything microsoft of the grounds that it requires a license.

I do not generally take one side of an argument without careful consideration of the arguments involved, but as a developer myself i am wholy against people that make there decisions wholly on the basis of the cost of software. You get what you pay for.

Matt Pott
BSc (hons) MBCS, CTIA, CGDip, CertHE

Managing Director, Cirrus Media UK.

[DNA]

I had to stop the video when he said the word "paradigm" because there was too much vomit spewing out of me.

[Tim Rogers]

Re Comments from Matt Pott, (who likes to sign off by pointing out his eminent qualifications). I hope he checks his facts more carefully than his spelling.

[Roger]

Matt Pott would be a lot more convincing if his use of the English language had been better - his comments are riddled with spelling mistakes, bad grammar and cliches - even his qualifications have at least one error.

[rick]

Bill Gates just seems like a joke trying to look as "cool" as Steve Jobs. And I agree with Jush Muller, "you get what you pay for". I haven't pay a dime for all the software i've got on my iPhone and it's the best thing I could have ever asked for. Thank you all those free developers who just ask for donations, I've made some myself, but just as a gift for those
wonderful aplications you make

[Ten98]

MS might not be innovators, but their technology actually works and integrates with applications people actually want to use.

So far the only thing I've seen apple's touch interface used for is zooming in and out of pictures.

MS will do what they always do, take the technology and put it to good use.

[Bola Owoade]

I am a great supporter of the opensource movement and 95% of the software on my computer is opensource. But I do disagree with some of the snide comments people make at Microsoft. No doubt they are not the most innovative company and some of their business practices are questionable they have nonetheless contributed a lot to the software industry. An example is when you look at the area of Office productivity software. I have used OpenOffice and MS Office and honestly OpenOffice is not yet a complete replacement for MS Office. Yes it is great as an opensource product but it still needs a lot of work. Sincerely I don't agree that Microsoft is as bad as people make them out to be.

[Jim Kelly]

Re: TEN98

OK, you've obviously never used an iPhone, because you think the only thing MultiTouch® allows you to do is zoom in and out of pictures...

...as an iPhone owner I can tell you that MultiTouch® is an incredible technology that allows you to be so much faster using a phone - everything is available literally at the touch of the screen.

The reason I'm putting ® at the end of MultiTouch® is because this technology is PATENTED by Apple. All these other companies are using touch, but none use MultiTouch, and if you think Micro$oft products "integrates with applications people actually want to use" then you might want to take a long hard look at what other companies are doing, and then you will be able to see how far behine M$ really are.

[Steve]

Unfortunately for most independent developers out there, your average person (read "consumer") isn't looking for an open-source project which they can code in order make their hardware do what they want. They want something that looks good, is easy to use, is already built to intuitively do what they want, performs well(runs smoothly, doesn't glitch/crash), and that has been produced by a reputable company who can back up their products. Enter Microsoft, Apple, and [Insert large technology company here].

While Touchwall may not be a big step, and while Microsoft may not be at the leading edge of touch screens, they are one of the loudest and most respected voices for computer-based ideas that are nearing a consumer-level breakout, which is what it's really all about. This technology, as noted by Rob in the first comment, is not really revolutionary in underground computer circles(that is, it wasn't created in the last 3 months). Like Rob said, you should check out http://www.perceptivepixel.com to see a similar project, but one which was realized in early 2006! [http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/65 ]

If you compare these two videos, the earlier one (the TED presentation) is a simpler, independent project. Over the next year, and following the formation of a company by Jeff Han, the screen's creator, it was greatly developed to show many different applications of this new interface(the software being the thing that was developed - I'd imagine the hardware remained greatly the same). This is what the whole thing is all about: whoever can figure out exactly what consumers want - how they want it to look, the perfect applications for the hardware, what kind of operating system will be invented to implement the new abilities, etc. - they will be the big winners.

Now take into consideration two scenarios:

1)This company may simply lack the ability (read "advertising power") to market this product on a large scale. Once again, enter Microsoft, Apple, and co. And this is why these large companies are not necessarily so evil: what if the people making these technologies in order to profit from them cannot profit from them because they lack the ability to sell them? Then the next best thing is to sell out to a huge corporation that will in turn market and sell their products to the world. This will give them some recognition for their work and they will reap some of the benefits from their innovation(read "profits").

-Or-

2)These inventors/innovators can sit there and develop the product to be something really desirable and unique, potentially receiving enough attention from news, word-of-mouth, and those underground circles to market their product for free on a large scale. In other words, they can take the longer road to computer success(i.e.-Bill Gates and Steve Jobs). They could make it big on their invention after cultivating it for a while, build a huge corporation that can market new and innovative ideas(both from the parent company and from those it buys out) based on their original concept, and have everyone hate them because they made it big. And the circle is complete.

And now the question that has been burning at the back of my head since I've seen these things around:
What kind of computer will be needed to power these beasts? Especially the one on the perceptive pixels website, where it had about 100 movies running at the same time, moving around and resizing with ease. Maybe that's why Microsoft isn't looking to build it just yet...

[Alex]

Ermm, isn't this called an interactive whiteboard? There are already thousands of these in British schools.

[matt]

I wonder if I can sue them for taking notes when I was last in Seattle mocking their touch table loudly over drinks.

[Steve Toms]

I'm not clear why this is supposed to 'out iPhone the iPhone'. Can someone explain to me how to compare my slim portable iPhone to this device. Maybe I should invest with a jacket with enormous pockets so that I can make use of this Microsoft iPhone competitor when it hist the streets.

[Jerry]

So, they made this giant touch screen thing and they decided they're not actually going in to production with it? What good is that to me? Meanwhile, I can go get an iPhone for a few hundred dollars and do all that touchscreen stuff that will fit in my pocket.

[John]

I tell you...if MS can come up with as infectious a jingle as Apple did for their iPhone...they will conquer the world! I can't get that damn song out of my head! (admit it...you're going to be humming it for the rest of the day now, aren't you?)

[Lionel]

I wonder how much Microsoft was influenced by this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s5EvhHy7eQ

[Titus]

clearly something is wrong with this culture when the once omnipotent corporate entity comes up with disparatic technology that so much does not make sense that they do not even have a planed use for it and it's so a 70's troupe of agiantizing a simple useful technology (like cadilacs to studebackers to current SUVs are to a simple car) Who will want to be glued to a screen, anchored to a place when one can achieve plenty of efficiency and mobility with he current iPhone. Not to mention i saw versions of this 10 back at TED conf.
Lovely weather isn't it?

[Bhaskar Gollapudi]

Why in the name of god can Microsoft not focus on one product and make it the best of its kind ?Why do they drag themselves into every competition ?