"A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit, and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?"
Albert Einstein
In 2006 Microsoft announced a new way in which a human can interact with a computer. The mouse and keyboard are thrown away and replaced with a tabletop containing an embedded rear-projection touch screen. Behind the screen, inside the table, are five cameras with overlapping fields of view. These can look through the screen and be programmed to recognize or read items that are placed on the screen. These cameras can also recognize physical objects, track hand gestures and the movement of pens and brushes, and read credit cards and "loyalty" cards.
The software supports a multitude of touch points so many people can use the computer at once. A single user can also multitask. For example, if a digital camera is placed on the computer table, the computer immediately recognizes that it is a camera, downloads the stored images, and shows them on the table-top screen. Enlarging an image is done simply by touching two opposite corners of the image and moving the fingers apart. Dragging songs into and out of music players is done in a similar operation. The aim is to replicate everyday intuitive manipulative interactions.
At the present time Microsoft Surface is expensive and aimed at hotels, public entertainment venues, Stores, and restaurants, but soon people could be browsing though music and book lists and downloading specific items, playing video poker, and ordering beer and food. Computer game technology could be revolutionized by these devices, and they could also be used with a real brush and a virtual palette to paint computer pictures in real time.
