Unmediated and Free @ CES '08

According to the local Las Vegas weather channel, the Surface Booth @ CES reached "unseasonably high temperatures for January."  Could the fact that we had oodles of Surface newbies non-stop all three days have had anything to do with that? 

I had the pleasure of demoing on Monday and Tuesday, and it was fantastic.  Most of our audience had never experienced Surface before, and it was amazing to enjoy all of the feedback. 

One of the points that people kept hammering back to me was the power of un-mediated touch.  In plain English, literally being able to place our hands on a song, a photo, a customized snow board had a powerful emotional impact. 

It struck me as a really key aspect of the boom in natural user interfaces today.  That ability to connect directly (not with a mousepad, remote control, etc.) with the content creates "mixed reality".  Very powerful stuff!