An update to the company's touch screen technology adds another layer of information.
By Kate Greene
Over the past couple of years, gadgets have become much more
touchy-feely. Apple's iPhone and Microsoft's Surface (an
interactive table) are two of the most celebrated examples. Now, Microsoft has
added a twist to Surface that makes for an impressive demo.
Microsoft
announced the upgrade to Surface, called SecondLight, at the company's Professional Developers Conference in
Los Angeles on Wednesday. As the video above demonstrates, in this new
version of Surface, a secondary image is
projected above the main display. A person views the second image by holding a
semi-opaque object, such as a piece of paper above the display. The idea is to
provide a second layer of information: labeled constellations on top of
photographs of stars or street names on top of maps, for instance.
SecondLight uses a neat trick to produce this second layer. The
original Surface used a projector below a glass tabletop to create an image and
infrared cameras underneath to detect fingers and objects in contact with the
surface. With SecondLight, Microsoft has replaced the glass top with a liquid
crystal display (LCD), but kept the projector underneath. The LCD flickers on
an off and, during alternate frames the projector sends the secondary image
through the display. This happens too fast for your eyes to catch it unless you
hold up an opaque object, like a piece of paper.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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