Home > Views > Blogs > Tech Observer > Surface Computing and the Coming Death of Board Games
EMAIL
PRINT
RSS
SHARE
TEXT SIZE:
SHARE
Send a copy to me

Separate multiple email addresses (max 20) with commas.

0/1500

Main
Daily Brew   The Ancient Sport of Spelling
May 30 2007 4:33PM EDT

Surface Computing and the Coming Death of Board Games

Big tech companies think "surface computing" will be important someday. Walls, tabletops, car dashboards and so on will basically be touch-screen, Internet-connected computers. The heck with carrying a laptop. Go to lunch at McDonald's, sit down with your burger, and get on the network using the table -- after you wipe the ketchup and other slop off it.

Microsoft today introduced its version of this technology, called Microsoft Surface. No surprise there. Chairman Bill Gates has been talking about the concept in keynotes for years. Still, Microsoft didn't say much about when these thing will be available in your local Wal-Mart -- probably not too soon.

Meanwhile, H-P Labs has been monkeying around with tabletop computing for years. And in 1998, I interviewed an IBM Research scientist working on that company's version of surface computing, which he was sure would be on the market 10 years hence.

The surface computing guys often say that, for instance, a tabletop computer could download any board game ever invented from the Net and let you play the game on the table's touch screen -- thereby Napsterizing the board game industry. So far, Parker Bros. has nothing to worry about.

See more in

Loading...

Add Your Comment

Required fields are marked with an asterisk (*)
Add a comment

Archive

Previous
Oct
2008
Next


Also in Portfolio.com
Most Read
Most Emailed
Recently Commented