Microsoft Coffee Table

At midnight last night, Microsoft announced something that looks more like an Apple technology than anything I have seen come out of Redmond in a while. It’s called Surface Computing and I still can’t find anything about it on the MS web site.

Here is a Popular Mechanics video showing the “coffee table” in action.Using wireless and other “invisible” technologies, the user can easily move files from device to device. The video shows how a photo can go from the camera, to the table and then to a PDA all with no wires using an interface that doesn’t require training.

Here is a TED video from last year showing Jeff Han, one of the developers of multi-touch screens. As the speaker emphasizes over and over… the interface disappears.