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 is a surface computing platform that responds to natural hand gestures and
real world objects. It has a 360-degree user interface, a 30 in (76 cm) reflective surface with a
XGA DLP projector underneath the surface which projects an image onto its underside, while
five cameras in the machine's housing record reflections of infrared light from objects and human
fingertips on the surface. The surface is capable of object recognition, object/finger orientation
recognition and tracking, and is multi-touch and is multi-user. Users can interact with the
machine by touching or dragging their fingertips and objects such as paintbrushes across the
screen, or by placing and moving placed objects. This paradigm of interaction with computers is
known as a natural user interface (NUI).

Surface has been optimized to respond to 52 touches at a time. During a demonstration with a
reporter, Mark Bolger, the Surface Computing group's marketing director, "dipped" his finger in
an on-screen paint palette, then dragged it across the screen to draw a smiley face. Then he used
all 10 fingers at once to give the face a full head of hair.

Using the specially-designed barcode-style "Surface tags" on objects, Microsoft Surface can
offer a variety of features, for example automatically offering additional wine choices tailored to
the dinner being eaten based on the type of wine set on the Surface, or in conjunction with a
password, offering user authentication.

A commercial Microsoft Surface unit is $12,500 (unit only), whereas a developer Microsoft
Surface unit costs $15,000 and includes a developer unit, five seats and support.

Partner companies use the Surface in their hotels, restaurants, and retail stores. The Surface is
used to choose meals at restaurants, plan vacations and spots to visit from the hotel room.
Starwood Hotels plan to allow users to drop a credit card on the table to pay for music, books,
and other amenities offered at the resort. In AT&T stores, use of the Surface include interactive
presentations of plans, coverage, and phone features, in addition to dropping two different
phones on the table and having the customer be able to view and compare prices, features, and
plans. MSNBC's coverage of the 2008 US presidential election used Surface to share with
viewers information and analysis of the race leading up to the election. The anchor analyzes
polling and election results, views trends and demographic information and explores county
maps to determine voting patterns and predict outcomes, all with the flick of his finger. In some
hotels and casinos, users can do a range of things, such as watch videos, view maps, order drinks,
play games, and chat and flirt with people between Surface tables.

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3. History of Surface Computing:
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Microsoft Surface is a hardware and software platform for developing multi-input, touch-enabled applications.
The platform enables designers and developers to create rich and visually appealing applications that offer a
new user experience in which users use only their hands and various objects to manipulate and interact with the
applications. A Microsoft Surface application should be natural and intuitive and should show little or no
resemblance to a traditional Microsoft Windows or Web application. In fact, a user should not know that there
is a computer in a Microsoft Surface unit.

The Microsoft Surface development platform integrates several features and complex hardware and software
technologies. To create effective Microsoft Surface applications, you should understand the architecture of the
development platform.
The following table describes the components of the Microsoft Surface platform.



Component Description

Windows Vista Microsoft Surface runs on the Windows Vista operating system. Windows Vista provides all
the administrative, security, and directory functionality of the Surface unit.

Developers and administrators who are working on a Microsoft Surface unit have full access
to Windows functionality (in 

 3. However, when users interact with
Microsoft Surface applications, the Windows user interface is completely suppressed (in
 

 3.

Hardware The hardware of a Microsoft Surface unit includes the cameras, projection display, and
computer that is running Windows Vista. The hardware captures video of contacts on or
close to the screen at a specific frame rate.

Vision System The Vision System software processes the video data that the hardware captures and
converts the raw video into data that you can access through Surface SDK APIs.

Occasionally, you might have to use a calibration tool to configure the cameras for optimum
performance. There are two types of calibration: basic and full. You run 
 
whenever you move a Microsoft Surface unit to a new location, and you run   
whenever lighting conditions change drastically. For more information about how to use the
calibration tool, see the Calibrating a Surface Unit article.

Presentation and The Microsoft Surface SDK informs applications when contacts appear on the Microsoft
Core Layers Surface screen over the application window. As users put contacts on the display and
manipulate them, the Microsoft Surface SDK notifies applications and gives them a chance
to update their user interface.

For each contact, applications can determine the position, orientation, bounding box, and
central ellipse. For contacts that are made with tagged objects (which have tags printed on the
bottom of the objects3, applications can also determine the contact tag value.

The Microsoft Surface SDK exposes two sets of APIs: the Presentation layer and the Core
layer. You can use only one layer when you are developing a Microsoft Surface application:

^ The Presentation layer integrates with Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and
 includes a suite of Microsoft Surface-enabled controls.

^ You can use the Core layer together with almost any user interface framework.

For more information about the Presentation and Core layers, see Presentation and Core
Layers.

Surface Shell Surface Shell is the component that manages applications, windows, orientation, and user
sessions and provides other functionality. Every Microsoft Surface application must integrate
with Surface Shell.

Surface and The integration between Microsoft Surface and the Windows operating system provides
Windows system-wide functionality on top of the Windows operating system. You must use this
Integration functionality to support unique aspects of the Microsoft Surface experience, such as
managing user sessions, switching between the Windows user interface (administrator
mode3 and the user experience (user mode3, monitoring critical Microsoft Surface processes,
and handling critical failures.

Key attributes of Surface Computing:

Surface computing features four key attributes:

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(1) Screen: A diffuser turns the Surface's acrylic tabletop into a large horizontal
"multitouch" screen, capable of processing multiple inputs from multiple users. The
Surface can also recognize objects by their shapes or by reading coded "domino" tags.

(2) Infrared: Surface's "machine vision" operates in the near-infrared spectrum, using an

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interaction, recognizing dozens and dozens of touches simultaneously, including
fingers, hands, gestures and objects.

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wide.
Materials. The Microsoft Surface tabletop is acrylic, and its interior frame is
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Not only pictures but full-motion videos can be viewed in this way; tapping the
video once starts the playback, and it can be smoothly resized and rotated while it plays.