TMW Ideas

We're all used to Apple churning out stunning new products that look amazing and have such intuitive usability that my blind grandma could work out how to use it. We're also used to Microsoft trying to create things that Apple would create, but failing. Badly. Such as the Zune (has anyone ever bought one???).

But all that has just changed. Some time last year, I saw a video on the TED Talks website which blew me away. If you don't know, TED is a cool organisation that bring the worlds brightest thinkers together a couple of times a year to show off their latest bright thinking. Anyway, last year they had this guy called Jeff Han on it. His video introduced a new kind of computer interaction device - a table screen, that you can drag stuff around with your fingers, make them bigger, smaller, rotate them, write on them do everything you can with a normal PC, but using your fingers (a bit like in minority report if you've seen that).

Then last year, we saw some of this technology on the new Apple iPhone. But now Microsoft have launched a whole table, that is a screen, and a computer and you can do the coolest stuff on it, in the most intuitive way.

The videos demonstrate some the things it can be used for now, making use of it's ability to recognise devices placed on the table. So for example, place a camera and a phone on the table, and you can drag and drop photo's from the camera to the phone. And a bit more bizarrely, you can split bills at a restaurant by placing credit cards on the table.

It's called “Surface”, and I want one. And you will too. Watch all the videos on the http://www.microsoft.com/surface/.