Take the Hop out of Barhop - Microsoft Surface

Your bar experience may just be getting the most exciting face-lift ever!

Now picture this: imagine yourself at a lounge you frequent, sitting in your favorite spot. The joint is packed and you can't seem to wave down a waiter or bartender to service you, and they just can't seem to keep track of who's who and who came in first. But, suddenly you notice a new table in front of you and it's glowing with animation. The first thing you and anybody else does is touch the surface. Immediately, the screen changes before you materializing into a graphically enhanced menu, detailed with all the available drinks and even has a sound effect. It then says "what would you like to order, today?" You and all your friends are now in awe. Then everyone else who hasn't placed their hand on the table begins to do so and their own menu's come up. Cool ain't it?

Think about all the possibilities. Forgot to bring a deck of cards? Not a problem, it's got a deck of cards build into it with a host of other amazing applications and interactive drinking games. King's Cup anyone?

I now introduce to you, the Microsoft Surface. It was originally unveiled by Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer at the All Things Digital Conference in May. It is able to recognize objects from a paintbrush to all your digital hand held gadgetry. What limited you on your personal computer at home was a mouse that allowed you to do maybe just one or two things at a time. This definitely broadens the horizons of the computing experience. Now with this new hands-on experience you can have direct control over the photos in one of your gadgets, as well as music, maps, files, and almost anything else you can think of that's on your computer today.

The Microsoft Surface is however aimed at commercial venues including hotels, bars, lounges, retail stores, restaurants, and other entertainment venues. So if you want this as your coffee table, you may just have to wait a bit or check out the Mitsubishi Diamondtouch, that is in development right now.

Now, enough of my blabbering, the video definitely does a better demo of what I've described, so here it is: