Touch Wall
Posted by Sam Churchill on May 14th, 2008Microsoft’s annual CEO Summit today is bringing 115 CEOs from 26 countries, to Redmond. Bill Gates will demo a new prototype touch computing device called TouchWall and Plex, which envisions a new “Minority Report” type touch screen.
Tech Crunch has more details on the interactive, rear-screen white board.
Yes, it doesn’t have much to do with wireless, but the user interface is innovative, and is said to be simpler and cheaper than the table version. Microsoft’s Surface computing, used in their interactive table, requires a Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of RAM and a 256MB graphics card. Wireless communication with devices on the surface is handled using WiFi and Bluetooth. A modified version of Microsoft Vista runs it. The TouchWall eliminates much of complexity.
Imagine TouchWall teamed with the World Wide Telescope (worldwidetelescope.org).
The WorldWide Telescope (WWT) is a Web 2.0 visualization software environment that enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope—bringing together imagery from the best ground and space-based telescopes in the world for a seamless exploration of the universe.
The inspiration for the WorldWide Telescope, and much of the early work, came from Jim Gray, a renowned computer scientist who disappeared last year while sailing alone off northern California, explains the NY Times. His project to show aerial map images of the world, TerraServer, went up in June 1998, a few months before Google was founded. He then worked for years with astronomers on the concept he presented in Science in September 2001, “The World-wide Telescope.”
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