Via Slashdot, I read about the announcement of ‘Microsoft’s Surface’ (actual website): it’s a table with a (touchscreen)1 LCD and can be used for a variety of purposes. The idea is neat, but not original: Earlier in 2005 or 2006, Phillips Research announced the ‘Entertaible’ as a concept. Generally, Phillips engineering department is worldclass so I wouldn’t blame them for giving the ‘taible’ such a horrible name.
Popular Mechanics has more details on Microsoft Surface. Skimming through the article, I can’t really tell if Microsoft is thinking about rolling out the hardware or just wants to focus on delivering the software that drives this kind of hardware.
Interesting, for sure: particularly, now that prices of touchscreens have been going down.
1 (add 05/31/07) ArsTechnica goes ‘under the table’ and finds out that the Surface doesn’t work with touchscreens (as the Popular Mechanics article claims), but with near-infrared camera devices and plain light.