Microsoft Surface: Wow… but

Microsoft are spreading the word about their new Surface Computing platform. MS-Surface is basically the same thing as the iPhone interface writ large on a coffee table where it, arguably, makes more sense. Of course, there is some speculation that Apple won’t be restricting multi-touch to the iPhone and that it will filter through to their computers very quickly.

MS-Surface is just about the slickest thing ever and is based on Jeff Han’s multi-touch platform which is itself not a new idea but something that’s just becoming possible. It’s very impressive. As Anne Galloway points out: THIS IS PERVASIVE COMPUTING. (caps in original!)

But I think multi-touch also tacitly relies on, or perhaps promotes, the fallacy that manual “direct manipulation” interfaces are somehow easier to use and easier to learn than “mediated” interfaces.