May 29, 2007 9:01 PM PDT
How the 'Milan' table PC was born
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With a bright blue table bought from the Swedish retailer, Han helped fashion the first prototype, dubbed T1 (Table 1). He cut a hole in the top, put in a special screen, a mirror and cameras, and added a lighting source and the vision software.
"As soon as they saw the first prototype...we had approval all the way up from Bill G. (Gates) to staff the team," said Stevie Bathiche, part of the group within Microsoft's hardware unit that developed the product, which Microsoft unveiled Tuesday night.
The idea for the new kind of computer dates back to 2001, when Bathiche was part of a team tasked by CEO Steve Ballmer and Lisa Brummel, then head of Microsoft's home and retail unit, to come up with some ideas on how to breathe new life into the consumer software business.
Bathiche had been kicking an idea around with Microsoft researcher Andy Wilson. What if there was a flat tabletop computer that could mix virtual and real-world objects and be controlled by touch?
Bathiche presented the idea at a retreat his unit held in August 2002 at the Salish Lodge in Snoqualmie Falls, a scenic tourist spot about 30 miles from Seattle. At the meeting, each member could use pretend venture capital dollars to fund the best pitch they heard. Bathiche's idea was the winner hands down.
"It struck a chord with everyone," he said.
Microsoft set up a team of about a dozen people, including Bathiche, Wilson and David Kurlander, the effort's first general manager.
The company tried out plenty of other designs. One looked like a tub, while others varied in height, including one that was more like a desk and another that resembled a bar. In all, Microsoft built more than 85 early prototypes, often hand-building new ones out of plywood.
"I never thought I'd use my corporate (credit) card at Home Depot, said Lu Silverstein, product manager for Microsoft's surface computing effort. "I work at a software company."
Trips to IKEA and Home Depot hardly sound like the typical Microsoft development effort. However, such projects are becoming more and more likely as the company opts to do both hardware and software with many of its key new ventures. Such was the case with the Xbox 360 and the Zune, both of which are housed in Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices unit, the same division responsible for Milan.
Much of Milan is software, of course. While it runs on a Vista PC, there is a whole other layer of software that handles the advanced touch input. Microsoft researcher Daniel Robbins built the first application to run on the surface computer, a pinball game back in January 2003.
One of the biggest technical challenges was coming up with a means by which the display surface and the input surface could be nearly the same, without interfering with each other. "We wanted to give the computer eyes," Bathiche said. By its very nature that "forces the interactive space to be right on top of the displayed stuff."
The answer was to use a projector, turned on its side, to send the image up to the flat surface of the computer. That allows the display and sensors to appear right next to one another without getting in the way.
Microsoft hopes 'Milan' has magic touch
for new tabletop computer.
By 2005, Microsoft had the design for Milan, both hardware and software, pretty well established. What it needed was a business model for how to get the still-pricey product onto the market. While its designers really envision their product in homes, they decided only businesses would be able to afford it.
Microsoft decided to take a page from the plasma TV business. Though the fancy displays are now a staple in many luxury homes, for years the displays were largely used by corporations and at trade show booths, with companies often renting, not buying, the expensive screens.
One of Microsoft's early partners is Harrah's. The casino's CIO, Tim Stanley, was heading to Microsoft for a visit last year and asked what the company had cooking in the labs. Microsoft decided to show him Milan.
"I went 'wow'," Stanley said. "Gears started turning in my head."
One of the challenges was explaining it to his colleagues back in Las Vegas. "You can't explain it to people," he said. "They only get it when they see it."
Finally, he convinced Microsoft to bring the device to Harrah's, so the IT veteran could show what had gotten him so excited.
Perhaps as impressive as the technology is the fact that Microsoft was able to keep Milan a secret. Outside of the team working on it, few even at the Redmond, Wash., software maker know about the effort. Though Gates is a big fan, even he doesn't have one of the units at his house.
"For Microsoft they kept it under wraps a bit, didn't they?" Stanley said.
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I could see how maybe daycare centers might like the drawing program. I can see how turning it on it's side and wall mounting something similar might make for a Minority Reportesque user experience. But frankly I don't see how it makes for a particularly useful table. I haven't seen the actual table portion of my coffee table in months. If I found this in a bar I'd be more curious about where I'm supposed to set my wings and a beer on it. Balancing them on the edge just so I can play video poker doesn't strike me as a good idea. Also, I hope it comes with a replaceable surface because between spills, key scratches and folks who like to carve while they wait for the waiter, it's going to get messed up fast.
In addition, having one at home would make for a physically uncomfortable user experience if you were to use it for anything more than just a quick web surfing session.
Oh, I have to say, when I first started reading the story I had to ask, "Wasn't this done in the 80's with Pacman"? True they were missing the touch screen component, but I'm just sayin'....
Actually, Touch technology is very cool if given enough resolution (at least that of a comparable size graphics pad. I noticed they were using a projection display, that is kind of ironic since if they were to task Texas Instruments (the inventor and mfr of Digital Light Projection (DLP) devices to craft a DLP of say 4x10240 and another of 4x7680 and corresponding detectors on each plane then you could use only two lasers to get a touch screen that would fit a 1024x768 monitor with 10 pixels of resolution per display pixel with 16 levels of touch sensitivity (just an example).
I look forward to seeing this technology evolve and think it is a very good next step.
I agree that normal computer users (on all platforms) are mostly stupid and would give in to something like this. But eventually we might see new applications areas for this sort of thing.