I’ve mentioned my doubts about large-scale gestural interfaces before, but wanted to reserve judgement until I’d tried one out properly. One of the more interesting exhibits at last week’s FOWA was a Microsoft Surface.


Pic by Christiano

The demonstrator, playing to its strengths, had plenty of fun merrily flinging photos around (a cute idea, albeit apparently nicked from from BumpTop), but there was a clear Damoclean question lingering over the thing: “so what?”.

It does have plus points, particularly around identity recognition (presumably via RFID), supported by good UI contextual controls: pop your card down and the controls appear directly adjacent. That aside, I simply don’t see yet what it offers the world. Let’s hope Microsoft can take it beyond the shiny proof of concept stage and show us some tangible value.

I also lingered around the stand to hear how people reacted to the interface. By far the most common comment: “It’s like a giant iPhone”. That’s got to piss them off.