Well the experience design community and the tech community in general seem to be buzzing around Microsoft’s big new thing Surface. Surface is an interactive table. The user interface is touch – no mouse, no keyboard. The applications for Surface and opportunities for innovation and interaction are very exciting.

Make no mistake Microsoft Surface is nothing new. See TouchTable, Perceptive Pixel, not to mention the common touchscreen display.

What does this mean for innovation and for the world of interaction and experience? Surface will do two things. First and most importantly this will mean a price drop for the technology. It will most likely be years before Surface is a common everyday occurrence. But it won’t take long for it to become common in commercial innovations. Second, Surface will create a common language around the technology. Standards will quickly be developed on how to interact with Surface. In that way innovators and developers won’t need to “reinvent the wheel”.

The big question is how proprietary will Microsoft keep Surface. If they squeeze too tight they will limit the innovations and applications of Surface. That will leave room for competition. If they hold an open hand, they will need to be innovative themselves in order to profit from Surface.

I for one eagerly await the release of Surface in the fall of 2007. The opportunity for innovation exists.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 6th, 2007 at 11:28 pm and is filed under Innovation News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.