A few days ago a new Microsoft Surface arrived to our labs. It is a great tool for user interaction studies. It’s surface material has a very pleasant non-stickiy textured feel to it.

Touch interactions on the Surface are recognized by multiple underlying infra-red cameras and transformed into user actions. The image is rendered by a projector located underneath the tabletop. The Surface is a really exciting user interface since it allows incredibly fast multi-touch and multi-user interactions. Not only can it detect the location of a finger on the tabletop, but also its orientation based on the shape of the infra-red blob.

We hope that this interface will allow researchers as well as students at UNH ECE to develop exciting new user experiences.

Oszkar