Microsoft Research does Minority Report Technology

When I watched Steve Jobs’ presentation of the iPhone back in January, he says that Apple has patented the multi-touch technology for the iPhone. The crowd laughed aloud knowing that joke was aimed at Microsoft. Now, I’m wondering why the Microsoft Research department also has the multi-touch technology implemented on a regular Dell laptop:

I guess it’s the same functionality but with different technology behind it. Microsoft is using infrared (IR) to detect multiple touch points in the laptop screen (or possibly, any screen for that matter). And since it’s basically IR, they can actually send data across it wirelessly by beaming IR light into the screen as well (see demo of a normal TV remote control above).

Looking back at the recently announced Microsoft Surface (codenamed The Vision), the technology is almost similar to what we’ve seen in the Tom Cruise movie The Minority Report:

What’s great is that unlike Apple which is very secretive of what they’re doing, Microsoft Research has all these demos available online explaining the technology behind them:

In the recent D5 conference where Walt Mossberg interviewed both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, the Apple CEO says that in the next 5 years, the convergence will be in the handhelds (implying an iPhone future generation) while the Microsoft CEO believes it will still be a specific device for a specific need. Looking at where the research money (though I think Apple is spending more on marketing) goes to for both these companies, it’s clear that these two are looking at different future. I’d say the Minority Report tech still rocks.