Funny, he was at the Maker Faire last weekend talking to everyone and showing off his latest thing. He builds demos for Bill Gates and he was the one who first showed me the PlayTable. Now called “Surface Computing.”

He handed me a stack of glass chips. I put one down. It revealed a video playing on the surface. You can see the same demo now two years later. My demo was of a prototype at Microsoft’s TechFest conference which was for employees only.

Anyway, surface computing is real and is wild. I want one of these in my house, but it is too expensive. Anyway, here’s how it works:

1) It has a piece of holographic glass that can display images that a projector shoots at it.

2) It has a projector underneath.

3) It has two cameras, aimed at the glass which can triangulate on objects on it.

4) It has software, written in Windows Presentation Foundation, that take advantage of the new hardware.

So, how does it recognize the glass chips placed on top of it? Easy, each chip has an invisible bar code in infrared-reflecting ink. Your eye can’t see it. The cameras can.

The problem is the expense. It costs a few grand for the glass, another grand or two for the projector, $50 for each camera, and then you need a computer underneath.

Which is why they didn’t announce you can buy one of these for your house.

Other cons? This thing does a killer demo. But can it do much more than the demo videos show? I’m not yet sure. It’s the kind of thing that’s killer for the first couple of hours but that gets old fast if there aren’t a bunch of real-world applications that you can do on the thing.

I’m watching the videos and seeing a lot of those same kind of killer demos but not much that would make me spend $5,000 on one of these.

How about you?

One thing, though. I love Andy Wilson. He’s an amazing developer. To me it’s totally amazing that he was helping kids out at Maker Faire. I wanted to grab each one of them and say “do you have any idea who you are talking with?”

UPDATE: I just discovered that surface computing was being worked on for more than five years now and that it highlights one of several directions that were pursued within the Surface Computing team, under Eric Horvitz, at Microsoft.

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Oh, funny aside? Our favorite name for our new kid? It’s Milan. And I didn’t know until today that the code-name for the PlayTable is Milan.

Either way, a Milan is coming to you soon. Not sure if it’ll be a Scoble or a Microsoft. Heheh.

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Oh, Engadget did a point-by-point of the keynote too (with pictures!) But, Memeorandum is the best place to go to see all the reaction from around the world.

I heard he won’t use any PowerPoint slides tonight. That’ll be interesting to see.

6:45 p.m. Bill just came out. He’s talking about winning the Time’s person of the year with his wife. Noted that in 1982 the PC won that award.

6:47. Notes that last year Microsoft saw 11% growth in Windows PCs.

6:48. Showing a futuristic home of the future screen that you can touch.

6:49. Shows off a cool holographic office screen. Shows images that wrap around you.

6:50. Demonstrates a Tablet PC that is virtually displayed along with the wrap around screen.

6:52. He’s demonstrating the PlayTable (a prototype table – someone just wrote me and said this isn’t the PlayTable. Oh, oh. Still very cool. And, I’ll definitely follow up with that team). He drops his cell phone onto a surface and images fly out of it. Wild. Oh, cool, now that the Table has been demonstrated I can talk about this. It’s no demo. It really works. It’s unbelieveable technology. How does the Tablet work? It has a projector underneath it, projecting onto holographic glass. Under the glass (you can’t see these) are two cameras that triangulate in on the surface of the glass. How does it know that Bill’s cell phone has been laid on the surface of the glass? A barcode on the bottom of Bill’s cell phone.

6:58. Bill is talking about the industry.

7:00. Windows Vista demos start.
Aaron Woodman is on stage talking about Vista. First, fresh user interface.

Live previews of applications. Switching apps is easier. Flip 3D is being shown (shows various Windows you have open in 3D interface).

Sidebar being demoed showing Gadgets. RSS feed reader in Sidebar. Dave Winer will be happy.

7:04. You can search. From the start menu.

7:05. Tabbed browsing with a twist. MSN Search done, brings up new tabs by clicking on links which opens new tabs. Then shows off quick tabs. Shows thumbnail of different tabs. Very cool.
Built in parental controls. Shows how games rating works for parents.

7:06. Experiences? New Flight Simulator being demoed. Whoa!!! Damn, that’s unbelieveable. You have to see this to believe it. Unbelieveable game experiences are coming.

7:09. Photo experiences. It shows that it always save the original photo. So, if you crop you can go back. If you change color, you can go back.

7:10. Motion video working right next to photos in new Windows media sharing app.

7:11. Windows Media Player. New UI. No long lists anymore. Resizeable icons and info. Very nice.

7:12. Van Toffler, Group President, MTV Networks is onstage. Announcing partnership. 100 CD-quality radiostations. Urge is name. Subscribers will drive the service. He used the word “sucks” on stage. Ahh, customers can tell them it sucks and they’ll listen. Two million tracks available. All you can eat OR download and buy your favorite track.

7:13. Blogging in a music service? Did I just hear that right?

7:18. Justin Timberlake just walked out on stage. Just announced his new album in conjunction with Urge.

7:21. Ttttttttaaaaaaabbbbbbblllllleeeeeeettttttt. Heheh. New Gateway Tablet shown. I’ll take a look at that tomorrow in the booth.

7:22. New passive digitizers talked about. This lets manufacturers build new kinds of devices that don’t require as much expense.

7:23. Windows Mobile. Bill is playing with the new Treo. Verizon is selling it starting tomorrow.

7:26. Messenger buddy list on new Phillips phone. Calls through Internet. Whoa. Through Windows Live Call Services. Gotta learn more about that.

7:27. Talking about TV now. Get ready for HHHHHDDDDDTTTTTTVVVVVV. Heheh. That was a note to Maryam. I wanna buy an HD screen.

7:30. Media Center. 6.5 million sold so far. 130 manufacturers.

7:31. Viiv from Intel is what Bill’s talking about now. Chip level surround sound. Dual core.

Direct TV video on Media Center. Ahh, talking is over, let’s get Joe Belfiore out here. VP of Media Center division. 15 minute tour coming.

7:34. Showing off a cool Media Center screen. You gotta watch this. It’s too hard to describe in ASCII text.

7:36. PC from Averatec. Small and quiet PC that have tuner. For less than $1000 with tuner. $499 without tuner. Sold!

7:37. Showing off new Portable Media Player. New Starz, Vongo service. Lets you buy movies and other media. Subscription!! All movies you want for $9.99 a month.

7:43. Windows Live messenger. Lets you ask for help with TV programming through IM bots. I have to wrap my head around that! “What’s on tonight?” Brings up results in another Window. Very cool.

7:46. Showing off HD-DVD on Windows Vista. Demonstrating interactivity capabilities of HD-DVD. Oh, this is cool! Get to move scenes without leaving movie. Or, get see what actors are on screen in the scenes you’re currently watching. Neat! Patrick just emailed me and said “that looks cool!”

The producer head talking on top of the movie got lots of reactions from audience around me (I’m sitting in a room at the Belagio watching this with about 100 other geeks).

7:50. Digital Cable. Applause!! Yes, we can get digital cable signals straight into Media Center. I’ve been been waiting for this. You can get premium stuff off of digital cable systems now. Will definitely check that out tomorrow.

7:55. XXXXXXXBBBBBBBBBOOOOOOOOOOOXXXXXXXXXXX

7:56. Xbox 360 launch stats. 30 countries. 4.5 to 5.5 will be sold by end of June. 4 games per console attach rate (that means Xbox 360 is selling two more games than any other console per console sold).

7:59. Announced that four million Xbox Live subscribers added.

8:01. More games coming.

8:02. HD disks announced? Yes. Later this year. Xbox 360 external HDDVD drive coming.

8:03. There it is again. HDTV. Maryam, you listening?

8:04. Boxing promoter came out. Oh, geez. Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates are gonna play an Xbox boxing game together on stage. The crowd here is eating this stuff up!

8:08. BillG beat SteveB. The replays are pretty gruesome. Knockout! New EA game, Fight Night Round 3, here’s what they were playing. Wow, Xbox Live is immediately pushing out a demo for people who have Xbox 360s to try out. That’s cool.

8:11. It’s over

Robert Scoble is the founder of the Scobleizer blog. He works as PodTech.net’s Vice President of Media Development.

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