Here in the fourth dimension we see your sphere as a surface, so it's just right for us.
Like we always say: think outside the tesseract!

i know im probably the only one that thinks this is cool, but oh well

Will it be Plug And Play?

Will they call it the PAP Sphere?

My dad needs a new toy, why not.

hmm... seeing as the table version uses projectors, i kinda wonder how the sphere will work... and will it give me power to control things with my mind? might be worth the price

lets just hope it has nothing to do with that movie "Sphere" *shutter*

YOu'd think they would want to get v1 out on the streets before moving onto v2.
Also, of all the things that the surface does, would any of them be better on a sphere?
I think that coffee table is the perfect form factor for this interface.
- p.s. I'm a huge Apple fanboy, but Surface could be a pretty effin' cool technology, regardless of source.

Hi, ummm, Mr. Gates? This is your horse. Would you mind getting this cart out from in front of me? Its in my way.

A sphere surface? sounds like a palantir from LOTR
allowing Lord Gates can look at us - I SEE YOU!

@nutbastard:

I bet they call it the iBall

@nutbastard: That was simultaneously the best and worst pun ever. You are my new hero.

@JustThisGuy:
yeah well head over to the bush wiretapping post - read the comments - i'll either be your super-hero or you'll hate my guts. But remember, if you hate my guts, the terrorists win.

@nutbastard: Stay the Course.

It was supposed to be named "Roundtable" ya know, like King Arthur. I guess I am one of the few idiots(also HUGH Apple Fanboy or perhaps thats redundant) who actually remember that from all of those videos the Giz had up a few months ago. Man I have no life...

Can it predict its own failure?

So THAT is what that Death-star looking thing in Dubai is going to be!

[cache.gizmodo.com]

This might be good for the folks that have fun blowing up stuff in space, or for looking at a 3-d image of the sun or moon, but if you're looking at photos on it wouldn't they just slide right off???

Virtual boobs. It feels like.... a bag of sand.

These were reportedly going into bars and other public spaces first. When I set m

@AdmNaismith: y drink on a table, I don't want it sliding to the floor because the table is a damned sphere.

(Hope that was where you were going with that.)

britney SPHERES will love that muAhahaha!

@ripfire4: Have you ever been with a woman? (great reference)

Oh you mean they're ripping off the OoGhiJ MIQtxxXA? Frylock and Oog are going to be pissed!

Talk about nebulaware.

ASUS will beat them first with internet connected TVs

why look down, when you can look straight ahead.

@skulldriveshaft: and any excuse to use that photo of the current/past american gladiators mvp.

A little comment on the Surface product itself: Isn't it sort of stupid to have a product that costs 10k$ but you can't move it out of your living room? Wouldn't it be more cost effective and better to use if it was just released as a multi-touch tablet that's reasonably small for the purpose (12-30 inches?) and that's thin enough to be portable or at least, movable?

@Dooga: Dude, MS is a lot of things, but it isn't stupid. I don't know much about Surface tech, but chances are they already thought of that, and the tech either isn't feasible or it would make the device even more prohibitively expensive.

This totally reminds me of Dglobe in jPod by Coupland. It's the exact same thing...except in a fiction book.

@MINI Driver: Nahhh nahh, only if it came from Apple. Microsoft will name it something catchy like "Microsoft Surface Computing Sphere 2008 Ultimate Edition SP1". They're getting to be almost as good at marketing as IBM (Sushi = Cold Dead Fish)....

@Pheromonal:Ahh, I was just about to say that myself. That was the first thing i thought of when I saw this post. So the real question is, can this sphere go back in time and buy itself apple stock?

DON'T DO IT!

the whole sphere-touch thing is far too concentrated a source of awesome for our space-time-fabric to take!

and, regrettably, we don't have Scotty with us to mcgyver the engine anymore...

There never was a finer Chief Engineer.

Surely the obvious use for this would be an interactive globe? Touch on a country and it could tell you about that country's history, culture politics via video or sound or show you geotagged photos...?

What else does this do other then movie virtual pictures around on a screen?

We know this is fake because a good looking woman like her would never be with a pasty face, freckled redhead. EEEEWW GINGERS GROSS

Big surprise -- the Borg are building a sphere.

@ Gizmo. pleeease fix links on reply comments. what i said makes no sense but is anyone else having the same problem?

mike

Shouldn't Microsoft be focusing on creating a solid operating system before they lose more users? Not being sarcastic at all but wouldn't it be the best position to really start putting focus into their core sale item? I use both OSX 10.5 and Vista (as well as Ubuntu once in a while), and no doubt, Vista isn't AS bad as it could be but it definitely needs to be optimized and tweaked to all hell.

Then it would be like the control mechanism for the airships in the Deathgate Cycle.

I'm sure the coffee table form factor seemed like a great idea right up to when someone actually used it as a coffee table. I can't imagine an electronic surface that reacts all that well to hot, rough, wet, and slightly acidic things.