Introducing Microsoft Surface

We're announcing our first surface computing product today at The Wall Street Journal’s D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, California. The product is called Microsoft Surface, and it's a table that integrates a 30-inch display that allows one or more simultaneous users to interact directly with images on the screen. Users can paint with their fingers, move and resize items like photographs, and manipulate content—all without touching a mouse or a keyboard.

Watch the 18-minute interview with Mark Bolger on Channel 10 to see a great demonstration. I love the object recognition features. I recently upgraded my cell phone and can identify with the phone configuration scenario in the video. Although I've seen versions of this technology in my seven years at Microsoft (my anniversary is this week), the fact that I will actually be able to use this at retail locations in the coming months makes it even more real.

If you want to know more, check out the press release and executive Q&A. For historical purposes, you might even enjoy watching the Channel 9 video interview with Stewart Tansley and Andy Wilson from August, 2005, where he shows off a "touchlight" prototype.

Update: Popular Mechanics has a great article that goes into more detail about the underlying technology.