I’m sure that you probably have heard of the Surface, Microsoft’s touchscreen table. I believe they cost about $10,000, and I’m not certain how much they are worth it. However, you got to admire its Picture Manager that allows you to group pics as if they were all on the table.

I had a chance to use one at a Sheraton in Seattle. They had them in the waiting room, and it was fun to find places to visit in the city, and there was a feature that allowed me to make a map to wherever I wanted to go.

It would appear that Microsoft has upgraded the Surface with version 2.0, or as they like to call it, the SecondLight. Surface 2 has a second projector, which allows the Surface to layer one screen over another. This will allow a satellite overlay to be projected onto a city map, or render a completed building over a set of blueprints.

I’m not certain why a second projector is needed for this sort of thing. I’m guessing the projections won’t be hovering over the Surface table like holograms or anything. By the way, the SecondLight plans to have high definition cameras and infrared sensors, so it can detect hand gestures. That’s right, you won’t even need to touch the table on the Surface 2.

All this new technology sounds pretty neat to me. It reminds me of the scene in Iron Man where you see Tony Stark assemble the blueprints for his armor with holograms and gesture-based controls.

We will see what kind of use the world can get out of the Surface 2. I can honestly say that I am looking forward to it.

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