Microsoft to unveil "playtable"

From what I can gather, it's a piece of furniture interface - a table with a screen that responds to touch and stuff. If so, it's appeal will be extremely limited. They could chuck an XB360 innards in there to drive it, but I can't see it being a popular supported peripheral. Unless I'm completely wrong in understanding what it is!
 
It's a coffee table kiosk essentially, for hotels, bars, and stores.

Their multitouch technology looks seriously inferior to Han's. The Han demo at TEDTalk was super responsive. Surface's demo shows serious lag when people drag stuff around. The only benefit over Han's stuff is barcode recognition, but that could be overcome by adding a camera to Han's device. Han uses fustrated total internal reflection, which is way more precise and accurate.
 
I think they licensed Han's technology (from Percepitive Pixel), at least judging from the video on MajorNelson.com; so I'm not sure why it's so slow... Maybe the infrared cameras are a problem, or the implementation / OS itself... ;)
 
Thanks for mentioning the vid. Certainly looks a great idea. Nowt to do with console gaming though! $5000-$10000 pricetag when it launches to commercial partners. And you'll need suitable devices to interface with it too.

It'll be interesting what camera based systems can achieve this gen on consoles. The physical interaction via a 2D plane could be emulated through watching a user's fingers if they can be identified okay. This is the basis of the old EyeToy Minority Report interface ideas. The actual touch-interface may appear that way on consoles if we're lucky, though it'll lack the tactile sense of actually pressing a screen.
 
This is one of the coolest things I've seen in a while! I'm hoping there is a home edition for 4-5k in about 3-4 years. I'd love to try one out. Use it as home automation/media hub.
 
Agreed, although might need to come down a little more than that for me. (Can't bring myself to pay over AU$1500 for a TV, yet alone a coffee table).

Ever since I saw the demos a while back I have thought this is probably the best interface breakthrough since the mouse and windows.

Hopefully this gets major penetration over the next 5 years.
 
RobertR1 said:
This is one of the coolest things I've seen in a while! I'm hoping there is a home edition for 4-5k in about 3-4 years. I'd love to try one out. Use it as home automation/media hub.
Click to expand...

How would that work? If its still a table that means leaning over and therefore insanely uncomfortable even for light use.

I currently find this design to be very limited in its market appeal. A great redesign would throw away the screen and simply be a wireless tablet. The tablet would be the touch surface and would communicate with the computer. This way you could lay back on your couch or favorite recliner chair and simply lay the tablet in your lap and control the TV. Another idea would be to use the tablet on your desktop, no need to replace your current monitor. Then laptop screens would have the interaction surface built on top and finally would make a "Tablet PC" worth it
 
A great redesign would throw away the screen and simply be a wireless tablet
Click to expand...

No thanks. For me the coolest thing is the touch screen aspect. And have we really gotten to the point where leaning forward is too much effort?

I have to lean forward to pick up and put down my wine glass anyway!
 
MrFloopy said:
No thanks. For me the coolest thing is the touch screen aspect. And have we really gotten to the point where leaning forward is too much effort?

I have to lean forward to pick up and put down my wine glass anyway!
Click to expand...

Leaning forward to control something is pointless, you don't need to do that. Neatness factor will go away within a week and after that I'd be much more thankful to relax and control it on my lap. You'll be bent over for possibly a few minutes depending on what you're doing, its simply pointless to be like that. You must remember such a device would be used for more than volume control, why would you want to be bent over while going through menu options? Instead its more practical, more comfortable, and you have direct view of your TV with a wireless tablet in your lap.
 
Yeah I guess this didn't turn out to have much to do with 360.

Still wonder what Moore was talking about, then..
 
Ah! so you were only against having it in a table. My mistake. I'm sure this is just the first model, and as stated is for kiosks etc. I'm sure there will be a version in the form you desire.
 
One does a lot of bending over when performing other tasks, so I don't see it as an ergonomical problem here.
It's not that different from what we were doing before computers.
Leaning over a table to write or draw with a pen, it's the same as this table.

I'm more worried about the durability of such a device, especially it's resistance to scratches and smudges on the tabletop.
Also, at current stage it's too big and clumsy for home use. It needs a lot of space on the base of the table because of the projection system and all. Until they are able to make it "flat" and more portable, I don't see it becoming massmarket, certainly not something of a successor to xbox360.

What will Apple show next? Didin't they have some patent for a multi touch interface. I guess it was aimed more at portable devices such as next gen iPods, and lacking the identification of objects placed on the surface, which I think is the coolest thing in the microsoft table.
 
I was reminded by something from a couple of years back...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQov4chYcKI

Nothing ever materialised of that tech as far as I know, even though at that time wild rumours of it being the interface of one next gen console flew around the spaces of internet.

Well, the MS "Surface" certainly is much more practical.
Not meaning to start any comparison war or anything, just for fun ;)
 
I love the advance of the interface, and this touch interface seems supremely intuitive and natural, but I do wonder what it brings to the table over existing PCs in real functionality. Mostly using PCs is clicking buttons for options, and typing. Multi-input is great for scaling and rotating images...but what else? How will it help spreadsheets and typing letters? DTP will definitely be improved. Video editing will be intuitive. Will encoding MP3s and copying them to your iPod be any better? One part that was excellent was the seemless interaction between devices and the table, but that doesn't need a table. The same interaction could be managed on a PC. Just place the device on an 'input' pad, or even next to the machine, and the contents are downloaded. Also what happens when you put your camera on the table and get the 'driver not found' error? I can't see a new interface as getting aroundthe primary problems of computers which is getting them to work seemlessly, and not worry about settings and security etc. That's more a matter of the OS, and I don't think things are improving much in that area.

As for games, for RTSes it'd be great. For most action games, I think the screen would take too much of a hammering, and the ergonomics of banging a hard screen with your fingers would be bad. For fun casual games it'll be excellent (eg. UNO and Lemmings), but I can't see it replacing or even particularly complementing the console on the TV.

I think it'll be an additional device complementing the conventional technologies. And gobbling up lots of kilowatts in a way sheets of paper on a coffee table don't... ;)
 
rabidrabbit said:
What if you sit on the table...
Click to expand...

Now your talking!!! A whole new way to experience internet porn.

Shifty Geezer said:
but I do wonder what it brings to the table over existing PCs in real functionality
Click to expand...

An interface doesn't add funtionality, it just defines the way in which interaction occurs with the functionality.

I think reason people find it hard to see it working for applications other than image manipulation and DTP are because the well defined constructs of how a mouse and window work are now embedded in our culture.

Remember before mice and windows were predominate, that most people thought that it was only usefull for image manipulation and DTP. The concept of it being used to control a FPS or as a general interface for just about everything just wasn't recognised at the time the original Mac came out.

maybe the spin and stretch paradigm will become as iconic (no pun intended) as the "double click"
 
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