When you start Bumptop, it turns your desktop into 3D – a floor and 3 walls (the wall nearest isn’t shown). On a fresh install it automatically adds a few things. On the left is a stickynote that you can easily edit by double clicking or make another by right clicking anywhere else. On the back wall there are three “picture frames” out of a harry potter movie, on the fact that they change to a different picture every 30 seconds. The right wall has convenient email, facebook, and twitter icons, in which you drag other icons or images on top of in order to attach an email, publish on facebook, or tweet on twitter. And finally, on the “floor” of your desktop are the normal icons. Any icons you had on your old desktop will show here, where they can be organized and moved.

The concept is great, but in productivity terms it’s not worth the trouble. It seems to me that it’d be a better option to organize with folders with a clean desktop, than to purposely make your desktop bloated with icons for the purpose of making piles and grids. After all, how much time do you actually spend looking at your desktop? In most cases it’s the few seconds after boot up and before shut down.

As mentioned before, Microsoft Surface would be a different situation. In fact, with multitouch capabilities, BumpTop would be a GREAT option. It would make features like lasso (in image above) a lot more convenient and efficient. Even simple tasks like moving and sizing icons would be much more easier and worth the time. After all, BumpTop’s motto is “Like a real desk, but better”, and Microsoft Surface’s goal is to allow for accessing data with your hands and “moving information between objects with natural gestures and touch.” Sounds like a good mix to me.

Lag/Touchability: Basically this is how well the touch table’s interface reacts with touch. The questions asked here would be, Does the screen do what I want? Is it easy to navigate the programs through touch? Does it recognize my touch every time? Since I don’t have either of the products to compare this hands on, I watched two videos. For Microsoft Surface: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zxk_WywMTzc and for Touchtable: http://www.touchtable.com/technology-videos.php?videoId=2 . I noticed that very rarely in the Surface demo did the person on video have to retouch because it wouldn’t read the first time, and flicks seemed realistic. Compared to Touchtable, it seemed fast, because the simple swipe on Touchtable didn’t seem to move the data on screen enough. On the contrary, a pinch on the Touchtable did too much.

I would say that Microsoft Surface won hands down on this one. Surface: 1. Touchtable: 0.

Screen Size/Resolution: The specs for Surface can be seen here and for Touchtable, here. It’s no doubt that Touchtable won this one. It has a screen resolution of 1920×1080, much higher than Surface’s 1280×720. It also has a bigger screen size at 46″.

Touchtable ties it up at 1 each!

Size: This was a close one but Touchtable came out on top by a little bit. Microsoft Surface is a little bit smaller in width and length, but since it uses cameras, it has to be taller. The thing is, this doesn’t really matter, because unless you are laying down, and have your thousand dollar touch screen just sitting on the ground, having lower height doesn’t really matter. In fact, we found only one way that low height is a good thing, and that is if you would want to put a touch screen up on a wall, like you do with a flat screen tv. Other than that, it doesn’t really matter, but it was enough to get a win for Touchtable.

Surface: 1. Touchtable: 2.

Usability: Factors in this rating include How many applications are available for it, How many applications are expected to be made, and in general how useful the product is. I can only guess at this, but I think that Surface wins this category. First of all, as of now Surface has many more applications than Touchtable. Touchtable, according to its website, seems to be more of a government tool for controlling crowds and security rather than an all round tool. And second, Surface has a huge team of developers behind it. Right now, just Microsoft (which is huge by itself), but soon, when the SDK is released, many more developers will be a part.

Tied at 2.

Price: The determining category! I know that Microsoft Surface is pretty expensive, so Touchtable could possibly take this category for the win…

But after some googling (I couldn’t find the price on the website), I found how much a Touchtable costs, and the winner (and cheaper) touch screen IS!!…

Microsoft Surface!

A Touchtable is a jaw dropping $59,000 according to PBS.org! How’s that for expensive. It makes Surface look cheap…

I will hopefully be doing a similar article on Ideum MT2 in the future as well, if everyone likes this one. Make sure to leave comments.

Edit: Please note that the TouchTable isn’t the same as Surface on all levels. The TouchTable simply allows you to use your finger as the mouse (no gestures).

Even Bill Gates has problems once in a while.

Just last year, Bill Gates presented a new technology at the 2008 CEO Summit called the ‘Touch Wall’. Although the technology was still not even close to being complete, Bill decided that he was to anxious to hold it off anymore. From what I see, he might’ve wanted to test and improve a litttle bit more.

“I always like to show something that’s new, because that’s kind of risky,” said Gates before the start of the presentation. The Touch Wall certainly is new. Just presented last year, the Microsoft Touch Wall is a large touch screen that mounts on your wall like a big screen TV. It has similar traits to Microsoft Surface, in the fact that it uses a Natural User Interface.

As Bill Gates walks up to the Wall, he describes how there are “some scanning cameras” and that the software will know when you touch it. Only one thing: it didn’t work. From that point the video is edited to delete out certain parts (who knows what). It picks back up with Gates saying “that makes me a little worried”, and the touch screen finally working.

Now I don’t mean to bash Gates by any means; it isn’t his fault. In fact, It’s nobody’s fault. It’s just a work in progress that the Microsoft team was anxious to get out there to be seen by the world. Lots of times you need that kind of motivation, particularly as a developer, to know that somebody cares.

But next time something goes wrong during your presentation, just remember: Even Bill Gates, the retired Microsoft CEO and one of the most wealthiest man in the world has done the same thing.. in front of the world.