As an R&D project, one of our .NET guys created cashforyourmustache.com using Silverlight.  Now the the general public can rate the progress of each individual’s growth.  This is the pinnacle of facial hair monitoring technology, the Interactive Transitional Community Hair Evolving Engine (aka the ITCHEE app). In mid December the final design will be posted of each person’s mustache. The winner of the contest will receive a cash prize along with all the bragging rights entitled therein.  Of course I can count on you - the readers of my blog to give me high ratings, right?

Don't forget, you need the Silverlight plugin to view the site.

http://www.cashforyourmustache.com

So is it as cool as Microsoft claims?  Well, yes... for the most part.  Here are my initial observations:

• It works just like any regular computer. You have to attach a monitor, mouse, and keyboard, and it runs Vista Business edition. There are a couple of pre-installed utility apps that enable the surface part. This setup felt kind of cheesy -- you have to run these apps in a certain sequence to get it to work, and apparently if you use the display settings in the control panel, the world implodes. For a $10,000 device, couldn't they have created a customized version of Windows that integrates seamlessly with the Surface?
• The default pond application is sweet.  Its a perfect combination of screen saver and display of the Surface's capabilities.  It does however, lose its novelty fairly quickly.  We remedied this by swapping out the background image with increasingly creepy images.
• The other default apps aren't very exciting, they're more for showing developers how to use the APIs than to show what the thing is really capable of.
• I noticed that a couple of the apps had some pretty horrible frame rates (the paddle ball one in particular looked like it was running at no more than 12FPS). I'm not sure if it's because of hardware limitations, or they just set a limit for that particular application.
• Interactions aren't as smooth as I had hoped.  I found myself fumbling to get things to react exactly as I wanted.  Maybe the technology is just still too new, or maybe I am just not very good at it?  Sounds like John Wilker had a similar oppinion.
• The Surface website is completely Flash based. <Insert sarcastic quip about Silverlight here>

Despite my criticisms, It's still really cool technology and I'm really excited to see what our .NET guys can come up with.  We've already got a list compiled of R&D apps that we want to make.  I'll definitely be posting videos of our demos as they roll out.

I expect this technology to keep getting better and cheaper... within 5-10 years I predict multi-touch tabletop computers to be household items (and with a much more convienent form factor).  My question is when will someone create a bridge/framework/hack to build Flash & Flex applications for the Surface?  Can someone tell me if it's theoretically possible?  I've had one person tell me no, but that just sounds like a challenge :)

After a bit of searching, it looks like there is already some work being done with multi-touch using Flash interfaces on other platforms by Ideo and NUI Group.  Does anyone know of any other similar projects going on, or want to start one?

I'm really excited because everything we do here is cutting edge.  Advertising agencies want (and are willing to pay for) the most current and exciting technology.  Also - we're growing fast.  If you live in the area and are a talented Flex or .NET developer, check out the work@phenomblue site.  More details to come.