Software company Microsoft has showed off its coffee-table shaped computer that responds to touch and to special bar codes attached to everyday objects.
Dubbed "Surface", the machines are a Vista PC tucked inside a shiny black table base, topped with a 30-inch touchscreen in a clear acrylic frame.It mounts five cameras that can sense nearby objects beneath the screen.
Users can interact with the machine by touching or dragging their fingertips across it.Users can also pick up objects such as paintbrushes or place items tagged with special bar-code labels on top of it. It is also possible to touch the screen in several places at once.
It will cost between $5,000 and $10,000 per unit at the moment, but Microsoft hopes to create cheaper consumer versions in three to five years.Its current use seems to be as a display tool.
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