Trabajos

24Surface Computing
Dept. of ECE 2008-09
11.

Conclusions:
Some people will look at Surface and claim that it does nothing that hasn't beentried before: computers with touch screenshave been around for years and have alreadyfound niches in ATMs, ticket ordering machines, and restaurant point-of-sale devices.This view largely misses the point of the product. Likemost projects, Surfacetakes existing technology and presents it in a new way. It isn't simply a touch screen, butmore of a touch-grab-move-slide-resize-and-place-objects-on-top-of-screen, andthisopens up new possibilities that weren't there before.Playing with the unit felt a bit like being in the movie
Minority Report
(in a goodway), but it also felt like a more naturaland enjoyable method of doing certain computingtasks. Sharing and looking at family photos, for example, is more fun on Surface than onany other device. The retail applications,particularly the dining application, show howbusinesses could use the technology to really stand out from competitors, though onewonders how diners will react when their table locks up and needs areboot.Many people who viewed the early Xerox PARC demonstrations of the GUI cameout of that experience knowing that every computer would work that way someday, andthey were right. Playingwith Surface, one gets the sense that although not everycomputer will work like this someday, many of them will. More importantly, computersrunning Surface-like software will end up inplaces that never had computers before, andthe potential applications are exciting. Imagine a multiplayer real-time strategy gamewhere you and another human opponent can move units around asquickly as you canpoint to them. Or perhaps an educational environment, where university students couldassemble and disassemble anything from molecules to skyscrapers quickly and easily