Move over Ikea, here comes the Microsoft Surface Table
Last week I was lucky enough to have a play with the Microsoft Surface Table at the Amnesia offices in Sydney. Amnesia were the first in Australia to get a hold of Microsoft’s latest move into home furnishings, you can read about the unveiling at Unboxing Australia’s first Microsoft Surface table.
The table looks like a massive iphone stuck onto an bulky office printer. At a reputed $10,000 each next year, it’s unlikley this will end up in anyones personal home in the near future. However, hopefully owning one in your own home is not too far off.
Microsoft surface table at Amnesia (Photo courtesty of Amnesia blog)
So I was thinking about what would be the must have apps on my own personal surface table, and I came up with:
- Board games – Monopoly, Pictionary, chess, checkers. No more lost dice or blunt pencils
- Virtual Fishtank
- Smart home control panel, so you could program the PVR, turn on the oven, control your outdoor speakers
- Fingerpainting
- and of course, Pong!
What would you want your surface table to do?
If you have no idea what I am talking about, watch the following video to the Bill Gates with the Surface table.
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Unfortunatly with the change in the US dollar its closer to double that price tag now.
If you have a group try to play the ghosts game (if it is installed), you have to collaborate to untangle the ghosts whiel stopping them from floating away.
Getting these into Museums is a no brainer.
What a fantastic new idea from Microsoft. Let’s just assume that the price will come down over time (eventually it will – remember when bulky mobile phones were $1,000+?) and we will all have a surface table in our homes. Here are a couple of additional ideas what people could do with it:
- Having Casino nights with friends playing Roulette, Black Jack etc.
- Putting together Jigsaw puzzles from their own photos
- Playing table soccer and pool billiard – solving the control issue for these games will be an interesting challenge for the software developers!
- Going on an around the world trip – there is a big world map and people can select countries/cities/locations they want to learn more about which will then be introduced with pictures, movies etc.
- Being a hip hop DJ standing a full sized turn tables and doing the good old scratching thing
- Creating songs with a “music machine” (virtual keyboard, drums and editing screens)
I am sure there are many more once you get started!
The table features in the movie, “The Day the earth stood still”. Not sure if it can yet do the cool things portrayed in the movie though…..
There is an interactive table already out there that is bigger and cooler than this. There is a company in Sydney called Vizi New Media who have already installed one at the Power House Museum. In fact, where the microsoft one is just a touch screen, the Vizi on you point at it. They also offer a mulit point vertical version. This company is so far aheead of the game, that they have another interactive solution that is driven by your eyes.
Wouldn’t it be so funny if you try to watch something on this thing and people’s drool just drops all over it? lol
I think this is one capricious gadget. There is a point where an invention is no longer serving a NEED. This one, I suppose, is trying to invent a NEED. Maybe I’m just not much of a gameboard person in the first place.
If this thing costs less than my laptop, I’d buy this. The price has to come down to a level where people won’t roll their eyes on it… well, except kids. Kids love this stuff.
Technology just gets more amazing every day. This looks like a lot of fun. In about 20 years I might be able to afford one, when the price drops
Reminds me of the second-generation Space-Invaders-type table-top games I saw in pubs in the early 1980s.
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