Embedded Processing

Last week, Microsoft announced Surface, which is a 30-inch display in a table-like form factor that allows small groups of people to simultaneously interact with the system by touching and gesturing on the surface of the display. This takes the human-machine interface concept beyond that of a display with a touch screen placed in a table top by including the machine intelligence to interpret gestures and to recognize different types of objects on or near the surface of the display.

The timing of this announcement happens to coincide well with the cover story I am currently working on for this August on the past, present, and future of gesture interfaces. I am in process of working with Microsoft to get more technical details about the Surface. I am also trying to contact Nintendo for their Wii interface and Apple for their iPhone.

It occurs to me that there could be many groups of people who are developing gesture interfaces and the machine intelligence to make these interfaces work, but that I might not uncover them during my search. If you are aware of anyone developing gesture interfaces, in any context, that is willing to share how (at a high level) and what they are doing, please post here or email me with a company name and/or a means to contact someone about their research, work, or product.