Microsoft’s Surface isn’t a “multi-touch” interface… in the way that they want to sell it anyway. It’s a multi-user tangible interface, and is going to be far more useful to groups, trade-shows and architects offices than it is to end users like you or me. The Surface is huge. And for good reason, as the technology for the Surface uses a projector and a set of cameras which monitor the underside of the “screen” for shadows and objects that it can recognise (Fiducials), it’s a very similar technology to the if you’ve seen it. It is not that shrinkable.

I would rant about how Microsoft are marketing Surface… but it’d get very ugly quite quickly.

There’s been a lot of multi-touch research done for a few decades at this point… Microsoft has two solutions (MS Surface is the commercial solution. They have another system, though, that is based on a 3d projector, currently runs about $60,000 per unit), Apple has their interface, Jeff Han (Perceptive Pixel) has theirs… Bell Labs did a lot of early research as well. MS Surface and Perceptive Pixel are more in direct competition than Apple’s multi-touch, which is more designed with consumer portable devices in mind.