It’s our best guess that the UI and all together feel of Microsoft’s Surface hasn’t changed all that much over the years, at least that was our experience about a year ago.  And just when we thought the product had all but met its demise – they still haven’t appeared at a ubiquitous rate in hotel lobbies and bars as Microsoft had hoped some years ago – the company goes and launches the second iteration of the product, the Surface 2.

Microsoft has partnered with Samsung for the hardware and is using an NEC camera, which MS calls “PixelSense”.  As a result the Surface has been slimmed down to a mere 4-inches thick, which basically means it can go any where a flat screen TV could go, not to mention it can display in full HD.  Inside the box is a dual-core AMD Athlon II X2 and Radeon HD 6700M graphics cards supported by Windows 7′s GPU acceleration.  

The screen itself measure 40-inches and much like the previous model it is still resistant to spills and heavy items.  It can handle up to 50 simultaneous touch points, capture text (OCR) and work with a tagging system that can be adhered to the bottom of a can of soda or beer to enable apps to automatically launch when placed on the Surface.

The reported price of the Surface 2 is $7,600 – half the cost of the original - when it launches later this year.  We’d love to review one, but something tells me it will be a challenge scoring this piece of kit.

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Microsoft’s Surface multitouch table hasn’t exactly gotten the popular approval of the iPad, but that doesn’t mean that it’s large form factor isn’t perfect for some really cool applications. The company MTS – DOC took the Surface and fitted it inside a variety of high quality tables, calling it the Multittouch Baroque Table. It’s made from oak, beech, cherry, maple, mahogany, larch, and other metal parts, with brass legs and a Windows 7-running computer. It’s main purpose is for libraries, museums and institutions as a cool way of having interactive information on books or art installations. You could buy one for yourself, though the pricing is unavailable — I’m sure it doesn’t come cheap.

The Microsoft Surface is super old news at this point, but that hasn’t stopped Sony from teaming up with a company called Atracsys to build their own version of a multitouch table.  Unlike Microsoft’s version, though, Sony’s uses some sort of camera that can be used for not only measuring hand placement but can see faces as well.

Hit the video above.  You’ll notice that their seems to be some lag time on the touchscreen.

[via Hardocp]

Microsoft’s Surface is far from becoming ubiquitous.  But that hasn’t stopped Australian design firm Amnesia Razorfish from printing Surface readable tags on all their employees’ business cards.  Toss the card on the Surface and it calls up the employee directory application, which contains their most recent blog posts, Flickr feed and Tweets.  Hit the video after the ‘leap’ to see it in action.

[Reghardware]

Sony got scooped on not one, but two patents today. I now present to you the touchscreen printer.  It’s best described as a Microsoft Surface with a printer built-in.  Just place the camera on the printer’s touchscreen and the photos are wirelessly downloaded.  The touchscreen allows for editing and modifying of the photos, such as cropping or color changing.  When finished, hit print and out of the side emerges the photo.  It’s not clear why the printer features a foldable design, but it might be safe to assume it expands the touchscreen surface area or allows for scanning.

[Tomshardware]

BMW is stepping into the future, the future of almost two years ago. The car company plans on implementing Microsoft’s Surface in show rooms, which will allow car buyers the ability to customize their vehicle through the interactive display. I know, I was expecting it to available as on ‘add-on’ product for the car.

As you’ll see in the video, they’ve got a palette of color bricks that the shopper can choose from and by tossing one of them onto the Surface it will add it accordingly to the car’s exterior or interior. It’s hard to tell how dynamic the system is, but apprently the changes and selections will be further reflected on an additional ‘vertical’ screen, which may or may not reflect the user’s choices in videos.

Looks laggy to me.

[BMWBlog]