Surface Computer Seminar topic

Abstract:

Surface computing is the use of a specialized computer GUI in which traditional GUI elements are replaced by intuitive, everyday objects. Instead of a keyboard and mouse, the user interacts with a surface.

Typically the surface is a touch-sensitive screen, though other surface types like non-flat three-dimensional objects have been implemented as well. It has been said that this more closely replicates the familiar hands-on experience of everyday object manipulation.


A surface computer is a computer that interacts with the user through the surface of an ordinary object, rather than through a monitor and keyboard.

The category was created by Microsoft with Surface (codenamed Milan), the surface computer from Microsoft which was based entirely on a Multi-Touch interface and using a coffee-table like design, and was unveiled on 30 May 2007. 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.

The Surface is a horizontal display on a table-like form. Somewhat similar to the iPhone, the Surface has a screen that can incorporate multiple touches and thus uses them to navigate multimedia content. Unlike the iPhone, which uses fingers' electrical properties to detect touch, the Surface utilizes a system of infrared cameras to detect input. Uploading digital files only requires each object (e.g. a Bluetooth-enabled digital camera) to be placed on the Surface. People can physically move around the picture across the screen with their hands, or even shrink or enlarge them. The first units of the Surface will be information kiosks in the Harrah's family of casinos.

What is surface computing?

For years engineers and computer technicians have looked for a better way for people to communicate with their computers. Keyboards while feeling natural to many of us has advanced very little beyond the typewriters which have been around for well over a hundred years and though the mouse is a step above that it still takes practice for someone who has never used one to become used to the idea of moving the mouse with it and after years of using a computer many older people still have trouble with the concepts of double clicking, right clicking, dragging, dropping and other techniques that can seem simple to more advanced computer users.


The most recent solution, and one that seems likely to stick is that of surface computing. Surface computing at its most basic is an attempt to make the use of a computer better match the way we interact with other things in our environments as well as better interacting with those things and allowing for far less time thinking about how we interact with our computers so more energy can be put into how we use them.

The most common and popular type of surface computing is that of touch screen monitors of the type that can be found on many modern phones. These are also common in many businesses where untrained workers are expected to use a computer. Until recently though these touch screen monitors were really little more than a replacement of the mouse. You could still only point at one thing at a time, and it wasn't even as good as a mouse because you can't right click or highlight things without using a keyboard.

More recently though both Microsoft and Apple have come up with new ways to use surface computing.

Microsoft's plan is a device called Microsoft Surface which takes the form of a large table and would be used in places such as hotels and casinos or board rooms. The key difference between this and other similar devices is the multi touch system. This allows users to use both hands to manipulate things such as photos, as well as the use of hand gestures and even physical gestures. Other features on the Microsoft surface allows for wireless communicates between devices so things like phones, cameras and laptops can sync with the table and move data between them effortlessly.

Focused more on the personal side of surface computing is Apple computerswho has integrated not only a touch screen into their Iphone but tilt control allowing for a great many functions. Many of these have not yet moved past the stage of games and while being able to swing your Iphone around as a light saber may be fun it isn't likely to become a must have application for all future phones, but the touch screen keyboard which allows people a keyboard experience without the need for a keyboard is certainly something that has the potential to catch on.

No matter how you use computers the search for better ways to communicate with the device and improve your experience almost certainly comes into your mind on occasion and with surface computing it is possible that we have finally found a better way to communicate with our computers.

Technology

As with all touch-screen technologies, there are two interrelated components – the display device and the touch-sensing device. On the display side, surface computing can work with any type of display, including flat panel, rear projection, and front projection. On the touch side, the choices are more limited. While

some early implementations such as DiamondTable used capacitive sensing, essentially all current implementations of surface computing use infrared (IR) vision- based sensing; this requires one or more IR

imaging cameras to be positioned so that an image of the entire screen can be captured. This means that today all surface computers use either rear or front projection, which elim-inates true “tabletop” use – unless the surface computer is itself a table, like Microsoft

How it all works

The Microsoft Surface is a revolutionary piece of equipment that has basically brought the major film Minority Report to life, we never imagined something so futuristic would be here with is in 2007. This is heaven to us and we guess it is to you as well, the way this new Touch Surface high tech table works is mind blowing but below we have 4 simple steps of how the Microsoft Surface works.

1) Screen – There is a diffuser which turns the Surface’s acrylic tabletop into a large horizontal “multitouch” screen, which is capable of processing multiple inputs from multiple users. The Surface is so far advanced than we could imagine that it can recognize objects by their shapes or by reading coded “domino” tags when placed on the table.

2) Infrared – Surface’s “machine vision” operates in the near-infrared spectrum, using an 850-nanometer-wavelength LED light source aimed at the screen. When objects touch the tabletop, the light reflects back and is picked up by multiple infrared cameras with a net resolution of 1280 x 960.

3) CPU – Surface uses many of the same components found in everyday desktop computers — 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 antennas (future versions may incorporate RFID or Near Field Communications). The underlying operating system is a modified version of Microsoft Vista.

4) Projector - Microsoft’s Surface uses the same DLP light engine found in many rear-projection HDTV’s. The footprint of the visible light screen, at 1024 x 768 pixels, is actually smaller than the invisible overlapping infrared projection to allow for better recognition at the edges of the screen.

Sources / References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_computing