A Day Made of Glass

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Microsoft Surface is Now Thinner, Smarter & Cheaper

Microsoft showed off a new version of Surface, its tabletop touch computer, during the company’s keynote address at CES on Wednesday night.

Gone is that cumbersome cube-shaped box with cameras inside. Now, there’s a piece of super-tough Gorilla Glass (the same glass that’s on the front and back of the iPhone 4) on top of what looks like a parson’s table. The whole thing is only four inches thick and works with faster processors and sophisticated infrared sensors that give it finer resolution.

The real secret sauce is what Microsoft calls Pixel Sense, a miniaturized version of all those cameras that were formerly mounted underneath the glass surface of the table. Not only is this new version a lot tougher than its predecessor, making it a much more appropriate tabletop for rowdy bars; it’s also a lot smarter. As Microsoft put it, “Every pixel is acting as a camera, so the surface of the PC can actually see.”

Source: Mashable

Siftables, the toy blocks that think

MIT grad student David Merrill demos Siftables -- cookie-sized, computerized tiles you can stack and shuffle in your hands. These future-toys can do math, play music, and talk to their friends, too. Is this the next thing in hands-on learning?

YouTube - David Merrill

Project Natal

Microsofts Project Natal ser svært interessant ut, selv for en som ikke er særlig interessert i spill. Microsoft lagt ut en video viser hvordan dette virker:

Project Natal registrerer bevegelser, og ser i første omgang ut til å være en erstatning for de spillkontrollerne vi kjenner i dag.

Men hva er interessant med dette for en som ikke spiller? Jo, dersom kameraet faktisk er så presist som det loves, så burde det kunne benyttes ting jeg synes er spennede: For eksempel motion capturing og match moving for hvermansen. Dessuten bør det kunne realisere grensesnitt som vi har ventet på en stund....