Multi-Touch

There's something new and interesting going on at Microsoft called Surface. It's based on a concept that has been around since the early 1980's (Wikipedia has a pretty nice backgrounder). It's called Multi-touch and it is really quite amazing to consider. MAKEzine has a nice little article for you hackers out there. The first thing crossed my mind watching the Surface demos was the movie Minority Report - the Wikipedia article mentions this as well. Actually Spielberg hired a number of professional "futurists" during the production of MR (for more on this see the Production section of this Wikipedia entry).

I rode home on the train this evening with a good friend who actually has a working prototype of something similar to Surface in his basement, though on a smaller scale. He's using an Acrylic screen that he purchased from Lowe's, a repurposed web cam, and some LEDs that he's sanded down. He explained that technology approach he is using is something called FTIR. What surprised me was that the most popular approach to Multi-touch is IR-based (infra red). I Can't say I completely comprehended everything he was trying to convey but I was fascinated.

Another thing Multi-touch brings to my mind is the whole UbiComp movement. I'm working my way through a great book on the subject, "Everyware - The dawning age of ubiquitous computing" by Adam Greenfield.