Gates demonstrates the

The president of the world's largest software company wants to turn all surfaces that people can touch into a computer interface.

Speaking to an audience of business executives in Redmond, Gates demonstrated a prototype technology that, according to him, would allow the wall and office walls to turn into . personal computers.

Although Microsoft's Surface computers now cost up to $ 10,000, but Gates pledged that these products could reach consumers in a few years.

Bill Gates demonstrated TouchWall model.(Photo: CNET)

Computer everywhere

"Certainly the idea of ​​surface computing will become universal. When I use the phrase" everywhere ", I mean each office, house, and entertainment room," Gates stressed. .

"Surface" - or surface computer, is the idea that Microsoft unveiled the introduction screen last year and immediately created a big media effect.

With this technology, the computer interface will be like a coffee table, where users can use their own fingers to drag and drop data.

They can also share, edit documents and digital photos with another group of users. At that time, Gates even predicted Surface technology would completely replace the keyboard and mouse pointer in the short future.

This time, to illustrate his speech, Gates made an audience with a 1m x 1.5m screen standing upright on the wall with the name TouchWall.

This device was developed by the Microsoft Research and Research Laboratory over the years, based on Surface technology.

With TouchWall, the presentation content is very intuitive and changes flexibly, fluently like "water" on the screen, not "jerking the Slideshow style" like PowerPoint.

The speaker just touches the "screen" hanging on the wall to drag, drop, scroll and zoom in - zoom out all documents, photos or video clips on it only.

Interface of the future

Along with TouchWall, Gates also introduced an accompanying software called Plex. TouchWall itself uses laser and infrared technology to "touch" the data entered.

And because TouchWall is just a model after all, it sometimes goes wrong. "Whenever I touch it (TouchWall), the software recognizes it , " Gates said, hand-to-hand.

But when nothing happened, the TouchWall screen remained silent like a sheet, Gates shrugged and smiled. "That's in theory." A few minutes later, TouchWall has just started . activated.

Future "user interface" is a popular topic in Gates' recent speeches.

For example, when speaking to a University of Washington student, Gates stated that devices like Nintendo Wii, iPhone and Microsoft Surface would prove the power and power of "touch interaction."

The US AT&T mobile network became the first major customer of the Surface. AT&T has installed this Surface computer in its store chain, allowing users to place the phone on the screen - then the computer will identify and display information about them.

Users can touch the screen to select specific information about prices, service charges and phone features - instead of having to ask a counselor.