Real Life Applications of Microsoft Surface

So although I blogged about it last week, I am still interested in this whole Microsoft Surface thing. Last night I went to see the new James Bond movie, Quantum Solace (it's really good!), and they were using a technology identical to Microsoft Surface in several different scenes. I thought this was really cool because normally when I watch movies or shows about secret agents I tend to think all the technology they use has yet to be developed, or is not available to the public; hidden in some secret government warehouse. This, however, is available to the public and is being used in several different applications! It's not only for secret agents!

I began to do a little more digging into the use of Surface in real life - not just in the movies. I discovered that MSNBC used Surface technology during the recent election. News casters were using Surface to present the electoral map and the battleground states. In a video with one reporter, he is using Surface, the table like form of it, while the screen in front of him is projected onto a monitor to his right showing viewers what he sees when he looks down at the table. The camera crew was, however, taking shots of the actual Surface screen to allow viewers to see what it looks like in use.

Seeing Surface being applied and used in this kind of situation put new ideas into my head about how the events industry might use the technology. Last week I said that event managers could use Surface as a conversation piece between attendees, or as a tool that would help them learn more about the companies in attendance to the event. Now, however, what if Surface could replace PowerPoint presentations by speakers at conferences, or replaced business pitches to clients. It would provide for a more interactive presentation and keep attendees more interested in what is on the screen instead of having them zone out and/or not pay attention to the PPT no matter how many fun graphics or animations were on the screen. I'm excited to see how Surface will take off in the future.