Next version of Microsoft's Surface in the works

gallery

The first generation of Microsoft’s Surface touchscreen platform is only just making its way to the UK and there’s already talk of the next edition.

Surface is a touchscreen table top, which can be used to create applications for retail and other systems. Users interact with it through touch as well as by placing objects on the screen.

At the South by Southwest show in the US, a developer who writes applications for Surface said he’d been told by Microsoft that the next generation was already in the works, the BBC has reported.

Phenomblue developer Joe Olsen told attendees of the show that the next edition is at least two to three years away, however. A Microsoft spokesman told IT PRO there was no time frame for release at the moment, adding that any suggested dates were no more than rumour and speculation.

Despite the long lead time, some details of the next generation of Surface are already, well, surfacing. It’s apparently been named “Second Light,” and will feature a secondary projector so users can overlay secondary images on top of those on the main screen – think images on a map, for example.

Microsoft’s researchers are also looking to make it handle gestures, so users need not touch the screen to interact with it. Another developer at the show told the BBC that the next version will feature high definition cameras.

Email to a friend

Print this page