"Microsoft Surface"

Microsoft Corp. has taken the wraps off "Surface," a coffee table-shaped computer that responds to touch and to special bar codes attached to everyday objects. The machines, which Microsoft planned to debut Wednesday at a technology conference in Carlsbad, Calif., are set to arrive in November in T-Mobile USA stores and properties owned by Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. and Harrah's Entertainment Inc. Surface is essentially a Windows Vista PC tucked inside a shiny black table base, topped with a 30-inch touchscreen in a clear acrylic frame. Five cameras that can sense nearby objects are mounted beneath the screen. Users can interact with the machine by touching or dragging their fingertips and objects such as paintbrushes across the screen, or by setting real-world items tagged with special bar-code labels on top of it. Unlike most touchscreens, Surface can respond to more than one touch at a time. During a demonstration with a reporter last week, 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. With a price tag between $5,000 and $10,000 per unit, Microsoft isn't immediately aiming for the fingerpainting set. (The company said it expects prices to drop enough to make consumer versions feasible in three to five years.)

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New Gadgets

New iPods for 2008 - 4th Gen Nano
Amazon.com Widgets
By now you've heard the news that Apple has released their new iPod nanos for 2008 and they've added some fairly impressive and fun features. The new nanos now have a "shake" feature (first seen in the Sandisk Sansa Shaker) which randomly chooses a new song each time you shake your nano. The displays are improved sporting a 2 inch widescreen with 320x240 resolution at 204 pixels, and there are two models to choose from: 8GB or 16GB. Spoken menus allow you to hear the name of the menu, song title, and artists without viewing the screen which means you can operate your nano without ever having to look at the screen. In ear headphones with microphone (sold seperately) will enable voice recording, and the new nano has a rounded case which (we assume) will make it easier to hold in the hand. Overall we're kinda impressed by these new nanos, however with Samsung's P2 and Y10 players sporting built-in Bluetooth connectivity and the Zune's wireless feature we're a little confused why Apple isn't untethering ALL their players and allowing for better unwired connectivity and accessory options.