As those of you computer geeks already know, Microsoft announced its Surface product, a computer that allows touch interfaces similar to the technology used by the Pre-Crime Bureau in the movie adaptation of Minority Report. At its core, Surface is nothing more than a high-end computer, a rear projection screen and five near-infrared cameras to detect input, all running Vista with the Surface software on top.
While the input method is innovative, I saw a video of multi-touch interfaces demonstrated last year. It’s great-looking technology, and it can have many useful applications, but are we ready for such an enormous paradigm shift? For example, it’s been more than twenty years since GUIs have been standard on computers, but I still find myself occasionally aching for a command prompt to quickly get things done (thank you, Cygwin) when a point-and-click interface just won’t do. Are you ready to drop the keyboard and mouse to use your fingertips to navigate around a computer?
I can see that being extremely useful for a *lot* of tasks that I perform at work and school. But for basic surfing the net and what not, I’ll keep my standard mouse and keyboard, thanks.