Check out this demo of Milan, Microsoft's new "Surface Computing" product. It's a really slick, touch screen computer built into the surface of a table. They've got some silly applications (a paint program), as well as some more interesting ones, like a photo slideshow/viewer where pictures and video can be moved around the table and resized by stretching them (a la Apple's iPhone), and a restaurant application that shows interactive menus (the restaurant kind, not the computer kind).

It can also recognize real world objects. The glass of wine you ordered can be tagged so when you put it on the table, the table can "label" it with the kind of wine, the winery, or other advertising/promotional content. And when you're paying the bill, it can recognize your credit card, and let you split up the bill by dragging pictures of what you ate onto your credit card (not an icon depicting your card, mind you, but the card itself). When you're done, there's a "Pay" button on the table that applies the charge to the card.

CNET's review says the units will cost roughly $10,000 and will start appearing in stores, casinos, hotel lobbies and other public spaces soon. I think this is one of those breakthrough technologies that needs some critical mass to really catch on. Once that happens, mass volume production could make it cheap enough to show up on desks in offices and schools, as well as various places in the home. The kitchen table is an obvious choice, where something very much like the restaurant application would be useful. But what about the bathroom vanity? Imagine a vanity that identified your medication for you, told you how much to take, or reminded you when it was time to refill the prescription.

Back in the '90s, my employer had a "vision of the future" center that would postulate just these kinds of things, but the Internet was brand new then, and desktop/touchscreen technology had not advanced to this point. Now, it seems like we've achieved a point where it would pass the Mom & Dad test...