Thursday, May 31, 2007

Big week for new tech

Remember five years ago when Minority Report came out, and everyone wondered how long it'd be before the holographic touch screens would enter the commercial mainstream? Well, it turns out the Microsoft Research team were already on the case, and now, six years later, they're ready to release the first Microsoft Surface device — and it looks awesome. The custom software runs on Vista, and already looks great, but I wonder if we'll ever see it running BumpTop too?

The opposing superpower Google also has a revolutionary new release this week, with a technology preview of Google Gears, a set of APIs that will help allow web-applications to run offline. Does this aggressive move mean Google are looking to tackle Microsoft head-on in the desktop application market? Or at least offer a technology framework for other providers to try? As web technologies continue to converge with their desktop counterparts, it'll be interesting to see what happens over the next few years.

No comments: