Last week on monday we looked at the new product by Microsoft, the touch table. This I think, is just incredible. I mean, who knew we could have something of this magnitude that can do just about everything. I couldn't get the video to post on here but if you go to http://www.youtube.com/ and type microsoft new touch table, there are a few videos you can watch that show many of the new features that this product offers.
It just amazes me that a video table can actually do all of these things. If you lay your camera on the table, it can pull out all the pictures and they will all pop up on the table for you to see. You can paint or draw on it with your fingers, it allows you to order things off a menu if you were to go to a restaurant and use it. There is no need for a waiter or anything along those lines. You simply click what you want and you can even edit it and what comes on your meal. You can order drinks and have them served right to you and one of the coolest things about it was that you can actually set your credit card on the table and it will read the barcode and get all of your information. It allows you to choose on the table, what tip percentage you want to leave and it calculates that and then adds that to your tab and you are all set to leave. There was even an application where you can put a live moving jigsaw puzzle together like for example they showed us a racecar driving and each square was a part of the picture but it was in action moving so I thought that was pretty neat.
Some bars and restaurants already have these tables and they are expected to keep growing in more areas. They say in the video that they expect people to start having these in their households in three to four years but the video was in 2008, so that would mean within the next year or two. However, the price tag on these is outrageous so I don't know how many people would be willing to actually buy them that can afford them. Certainly they won't be a common household item like a television or what not, at least not for quite some time.
