Microsoft Surface

Microsoft surface is a multi touch surface computer (use of specialized graphical user interface) which brings the world on to your finger tips. Unlike ordinary computers where users are allowed to interact with the interface using mouse and keyboard, here it provides the opportunity to do the communication through single flick of the finger. Apparently Microsoft surface is a reflective tabletop which facilitate 360 degree user interface. The unique feature of this surface in contrast to touch pads, touch screens is providing multiple accesses at the same time. This interface can respond to hand gestures, movement of fingers, and real world objects like cameras, cell phones, paint brushes etc. For an eg: if a cell phone is kept on this surface it can identify all the features of the phone including price, battery type etc.

In order to identify objects, touches it uses near infrared waves. LED light source is being focused on to the object. Underneath the reflective surface a projector and 5 infrared cameras are placed. When the object touches the surface the light is reflected to the cameras. These act as sensors in identifying the object. In MS surface all the real world objects are tagged using a code like a bar code in ordered to differentiate them from others. So as soon as the object is identified the bar code and features are displayed on the screen. Also this reflective surface is capable of identifying up to 52 touches at one time.

     The components of MS surface

     




1-      multi touch screen

      2-      Infrared beam

      3-      CPU

      4-      projector

     

      This surface supports multi users. Several people can sit around the table and interact with the surface at the same time. But when considering the privacy there is no guarantee as the content is visible to everybody. In the mean time a user can use all the fingers to carry out a specific task. If someone has fat fingers the accuracy will not be gained well.  Further to interact with some application user only need to touch the surface. So it is quite fast and easy. Also tasks like copying, resizing, deleting, transferring data can easily be done with this interface. As the surface area is much large many users can access the interface at once. When an object is placed the surface recognizes the physical features and transfers those data to the CPU. It allows digital objects as well as non digital objects to interact with the surface providing a user friendly environment.

      As weak points, the surface is not portable and very expensive. So it is not affordable for many people. Other than that surface is being touched by many users. So the finger prints, dirt on fingers can disturb the visibility of the content on the surface. 

    

Nowadays this surface is used commonly in restaurants, retail shops, gaming purposes, public entertainment etc. Surface computing is the new era of computing . So this invention will become a revolution in near future.

      By : Chandrika Malkanthi