Those of you that have been following Surface probably remember the Surface Monster demo we showed at PDC this fall. Luis and Paul tricked out this model to work on Surface and convey images from Surface onto the.. well, it’s a little complicated to describe, but amazing to see. Surface Monster got a lot of people talking about what can be done with Surface’s vision system - it’s not just multi-touch and multi-user, but it sees what is placed on the display.
So Paul has sent his monster on a little trip. The first stop was with Dustin Freeman with DGP at the University of Toronto. This is the same place where Bill Buxton, who pioneered multi-touch interfaces in the ‘70s, did a bunch of his work. Bill is now at Microsoft. Of course, the lab continues to be a place for inspired minds to produce award winning research.
On to the important part. Dustin was doing some research [turning Surface on its side?] and then started playing with the monster. Now he’s got the monster eating bubbles. Of course you’d get sick eating bubbles, right? Dustin made that happen when you poke him in the eye. That makes total sense to me.
Clear? Watch the video.
What should you make of all this?
We’ve shown before how Surface enables people to come together and interact in social settings with each other and with technology as an enabler - not a barrier. For example, the large display lets a banker review investment products face-to-face with their client. Surface makes things simple and breaks down barriers. Everyone can join in. Surface lets customers reach out and touch a corporate brand directly and naturally. Surface is an amazing platform that is not only being used for research, but it is a shipping product that is being used by companies in public settings today.
Yeah, maybe that sounds like marketing-speak. Let me put it this way. The monster is one example of how using tangibles gives even greater reach into the natural – with graspable dials or buttons that can change their function as needed, and require no power or retooling. It’s not a vision. It is real.
Do you have a Surface in your office? Do you have crazy ideas? Do you want the monster to visit you next? Reach out to me on Twitter and let me know.
- Eric
After seeing this, I realized this can open a new world on the surface.. a 3D world. Obviously, the Monster is a great example of a passive tangible, meaning, you are really just piping the light and essentially extending the screen.
The question, though, is can an active device.. one that is battery powered, perhaps, be created that can communicate with Surface through projected patterns? A video camera, for example that just sits on the surface table and pipes the video stream into surface directly without something like a Bluetooth connection.