The Microsoft Surface tables we’ve seen so far are a little hefty to put it mildly but principal researcher Bill Buxton says we’ll see a radically thinner version headed for our homes within the next three years. Are you ready for a camera-packing Microsoft Surface with image recognition skills built in to your dining table?
In a recent interview with The Globe and Mail, Buxton claims that the next gen Microsoft Surface will be super-thin and small enough to hit our homes. He explains why the current model is so bulky: “Right now it has five cameras in it and a projector and a bunch of other stuff.”
Buxton says Microsoft Surface will be abel to slimmed down thanks to advances in camera tech: “What will happen is that [Microsoft Surface] will become no thicker than a sheet of glass. It’s not going to have any cameras or projectors because the cameras will be embedded in the device itself.”
He reveals that Microsoft has a new type of screen in development to make miniaturising Microsoft Surface possible. His simple explanation sounds intriguing: “The best way to think about it is like a big LCD where there’s a fourth pixel in every triad. So there’s red, green and blue pixels giving you light and a fourth pixel which is a sensor that will capture stuff.”
Buxton predicts that the next gen Microsoft Surface will be part of our future homes: “These things will come in at really cost effective prices and will start appearing in people’s living rooms, dining rooms…I believe you will see that in three years.” Is he right? Microsoft does have an awful habit of keeping interesting research locked up in its labs or ditching it entirely (remember the Microsoft Courier?).
Sling your future gazing predictions into the comments now? Will Microsoft Surface join Kinect in our living rooms?
Out TBC | £TBC | Microsoft (via The Globe and Mail)
